The love-songs which linger most tenderly in the memory are those which tell of the wooing that is still a-doing. "Men are May when they woo, December when they wed," says pretty Perdita. So love sings of hope, often of hope deferred. Take, for instance, the "Paisteen Fionn " or, as Dr. P. W. Joyce words it, "The Fair-Haired Young Girl." Some obstacle keeps lover and sweetheart apart; parents are disdainful or poverty forbids. Trouble there surely is, for the lover has been sick with fever for nine long nights" from lying under the hedgerow, beneath the rain" hoping some whistle or call might awake his love. He would flee from kinsfolk and friends, "But never leave my sweet gramachree." He longs to be at home

Between two barrels of brave brown ale,
My fair little sister to list my tale.

Between each verse the chorus applauds his determination to win her. Who can doubt that a true lover made the following verses? Their English they owe to Edward Walsh:

My Paisteen Fionn is my soul's delight-
Her heart laughs out in her blue eyes bright;
The bloom of the apple her bosom white,
Her neck like the swan's in whiteness.

Love of my bosom, my fair Paisteen,
Whose cheek is red, like the rose's sheen;
My thoughts of the maiden are pure, I ween,
Save toasting her health in my lightness.

Ex. 18. The Paisteen Fionn.

CHORUS.

A love-song of a cheery strain is "I wish the Shepherd's Pet Were Mine." It is an idyll of the Irish Arcadia-not the artificial Arcadia of Florian and La Fontaine, but an Arcadia in which the dwellers are childlike as well as care-free. The lover has an eye to the substantial things of life, which help

to make home comfortable, as well as to Kate herself. Her he would fain possess, but he would like her rich flocks also. This is how he sings:

I wish I had the shepherd's lamb,

The shepherd's lamb, the shepherd's lamb;
I wish I had the shepherd's lamb,

And Katey coming after.

The yellow cow pleases him too, but he must have a welcome from his darling as well. He concludes with a wish for the herd of kine " and Katey from her father." Between the verses the chorus sings (the English is Dr. Joyce's):

And Oh! I hail thee, I hail thee!

My heart's love without guile are thou.
And Oh! I hail thee, I hail thee,
The fair pet of thy mother.

The Irish maiden sings her wish for happy marriage with as entire an absence of false shame as Grecian Antigone. Dr. Joyce has recorded two songs of this kind. One is "I'm going to be married on Sunday," and the other, "Come, cheer up, cheer up, daughter." Both songs have had to be re-written; but Dr. Joyce has preserved the spirit of the originals, incorporating the best lines and leaving out such verses as were either worthless or objectionable. In the first song the girl sings:

It is quite time to marry when a girl is sixteen;
'Twas Willy that told me, so it's plain to be seen;
For he's handsome and manly and fit for a queen,
And just twenty years old on next Sunday,
Just twenty years old on next Sunday.

But her friends think sixteen is too youthful to marry. They would have her carry her mailpail for two or three years more. That, however, is clean against her will:

On Saturday night, when I'm free from all care,
I'll finish my dress and I'll paper my hair;

There are three pretty maids to wait on me there,
And to dance at my wedding on Sunday,

To dance at my wedding on Sunday.

In "Cheer up, cheer up, daughter," the feeling is deeper and the young woman says just what is in her heart. The song is in the form of a dialogue, but there is no difficulty in distinguishing the characters.

"Cheer up, cheer up, daughter, what makes you look so sad? Good news, good news, dear daughter, will make your heart be glad."

"Oh! I'm pining, dear mother,

This long and weary years,

And it's well you know the good news, dear mother, that I should like to hear."

Thee mother tells her she shall have a lamb; but the daughter replies that she is a woman and "cannot play with toys." A sheep is promised, then a cow; but still the girl is disconsolate. At last the mother gladdens her with the longed-for tidings:

"Cheer up, cheer up, daughter, and married you shall be," "Oh! I will cheer up now, dear mother, for that's the news for me."

"You are a silly maid I vow;

"And why do you cheer up now?"

“Because I love a young man, dear mother, more than lamb,

or sheep or cow."

People hummed the old airs until the emotion stirring within them took form in poetry. That is why "The Coulin" and "Eileen Aroon" have created such a wealth of verse. There is no limit to the inspirational power of a fine air. When Carrol O'Daly sang "Eileen Aroon," it was a love-song; the same tune moved Thomas Moore to write "Erin, the tear and the smile in thine eyes "; in "Soggarth Aroon," it sings the peasant's devotion to his priest. To establish the relationship of poem and tune belongs to antiquarian research. Petrie never rested content until he had compared all the obtainable variants of a tune and done his utmost to seek out

the original poem. The love-song, "Nora of the

Amber Hair," he traced back in manuscript form to 1785. His colleague, Eugene O'Curry, collated the words given in the collections of Hardiman and Walsh, and compared them with floating tradition, working patiently towards a restoration of the original. This done, he made a literal translation of the Gaelic into English. Some of the lines may be too realistic or too lowly to please our academic purists; but even they cannot deny that the singer who tells his mistress he will tread the dew before her and not press down the grass has the imagination of a poet.

O Nora of the Amber hair
It is my grief that I cannot
Put my arm under your head,
Or over thy bosom's vesture;
It is thou that hast left my head
Without a single ounce of sense,