Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ROSE OF KENMARE by ALFRED PERCEVAL GRAVES

First Line: I'VE BEEN SOFT IN A SMALL WAY
I've been soft in a small way
On the girleens of Galway,
And the Limerick lasses have made me feel quare;
But there's no use denyin'
No girl I've set eye on
Could compate wid Rose Ryan of the town of Kenmare.


O, where
Can her like be found?
Nowhere,
The country round,
Spins at her wheel
Daughter as true,
Sets in the reel,
Wid a slide of the shoe,
a slinderer,
tinderer,
purtier,
wittier colleen than you,
Rose, aroo!
Her hair mocks the sunshine,
And the soft, silver moonshine
Neck and arm of the colleen complately eclipse;
Whilst the nose of the jewel
Slants straight as Carn Tual
From the heaven in her eye to her heather-sweet lips.


O, where, &c.
Did your eyes ever follow
The wings of the swallow
Here and there, light as air, o'er the meadow field glance?
For if not you've no notion
Of the exquisite motion
Of her sweet little feet as they dart in the dance.


O, where, &c.
If y' inquire why the nightingale
Still shuns the invitin' gale
That wafts every song-bird but her to the West,
Faix she knows, I suppose,
Ould Kenmare has a Rose
That would sing any Bulbul to sleep in her nest.


O, where, &c.
When her voice gives the warnin'
For the milkin' in the mornin'
Ev'n the cow known for hornin' comes runnin' to her pail;
The lambs play about her
And the small bonneens snout her,
Whilst their parints salute her wid a twisht of the tail.


O, where, &c.
When at noon from our labour
We draw neighbour wid neighbour
From the heat of the sun to the shilter of the tree,
Wid spuds fresh from the bilin'
And new milk you come smilin',
All the boys' hearts beguilin', alannah machree!


O, where, &c.
But there's one sweeter hour
When the hot day is o'er
And we rest at the door wid the bright moon above,
And she sittin' in the middle,
When she's guessed Larry's riddle,
Cries, "Now for your fiddle, Shiel Dhuv, Shiel Dhuv!


O, where
Can her like be found?
Nowhere,
The country round,
Spins at her wheel
Daughter as true,
Sets in the reel,
Wid a slide of the shoe,
a slinderer,
tinderer,
purtier,
wittier colleen than you,
Rose, aroo!


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