Three traditional Ulster airs

As I rode down to Gartan fair
I met a girl upon the way:
The winter night was on her hair,
The summer dawn was in her eye.

And O, she stepped with such a gait,
And bore her round black head so high,
And tossed it so, I knew her straight
For Sile of the Silver Eye.

“God save you, Sile, love,” says I:
“God save you kindly,” murmured she—
And love was welling in her eye
As she dropped me the courtesy.

The mountain boys upon the road
Were at themselves for jealousy
When they saw Seamus win the nod
From Sile of the Silver Eye.

We rode together to the fair,
We danced together on the green;
And faith they say a suppler pair
Was ne’er before a piper seen.

Black Sile of the Silver Eye
Has been my wife for twenty year,
And still her sloe-black head is high,
And still her eye is silver clear.

And God be praised, we have a girl,
As like her as like well can be—
The round black head, the roguish curl,
The soft tongue and the silver eye.

God bless the old, God bless the new,
And send them stout posterity—
Old Sile and young Sile, too—
Both “Sile of the Silver Eye!”