He could not rest in the daytime,
  He could not sleep in the night,
Hastened back to the old road,
  With the trysting-place in sight.

What first he heard was his love’s name,
  And keening both loud and long;
What first he saw was his love’s face
  At the head of a mourning throng.

And white she was as the dead are,
  And never a move made she,
But passed him by on her black pall,
  Still sleeping so peacefully.

And cold she was as the dead are,
  And never a word she spake,
When they said, “Unholy is her grave,
  Since she her life did take.”

Silent she was, as the dead are,
  And never a cry she made
When there came, more sad than the keening,
  The ring of a digging spade.

No rest they gave in the town church,
  No grave by the lake so sweet,
But buried her in unholy ground,
  Where the four cross roads do meet.

THE BANSHEE:  DORA SIGERSON SHORTER

God be between us and all harm,
    For I to-night have seen
A banshee in the shadow pass
    Along the dark boreen.

And as she went she keened and cried,
    And combed her long white hair,
She stopped at Molly Reilly’s door,
    And sobbed till midnight there.

And is it for himself she moans,
    Who is so far away? 
Or is it Molly Reilly’s death
    She cries until the day?

Now Molly thinks her man has gone
    A sailor lad to be;
She puts a candle at her door
    Each night for him to see.

But he is off to Galway town,
    (And who dare tell her this?)
Enchanted by a woman’s eyes,
    Half-maddened by her kiss.

So as we go by Molly’s door
    We look towards the sea,
And say, “May God bring home your lad
    Wherever he may be.”

I pray it may be Molly’s self
    The banshee keens and cries,
For who dare breathe the tale to her,
    Be it her man who dies?

But there is sorrow on the way,
    For I tonight have seen
A banshee in the shadow pass
    Along the dark boreen.

THE SEVEN WHISTLERS:  ALICE E. GILLINGTON

Whistling strangely, whistling sadly, whistling sweet and
    clear,
The Seven Whistlers have passed thy house, Pentruan of
    Porthmeor;
It was not in the morning, nor the noonday’s golden
    grace,
It was in the dead waste midnight, when the tide yelped
    loud in the Race: 
The tide swings round in the Race, and they’re plaining
    whisht and low,
And they come from the gray sea-marshes, where the gray
    sea-lavenders grow,
      And the cotton-grass sways to and fro;
      And the gore-sprent sundews thrive
      With oozy hands alive. 
Canst hear the curlews’ whistle through thy dreamings dark and drear,
How they’re crying, crying, crying, Pentruan of Porthmeor?