by Samuel Ferguson, Sir (1810 - 1886)
Cashel of Munster
Language: English
I'd wed you without herds, without money or rich array, And I’d wed you on a dewy morn at day-dawn gray; My bitter woe it is, love, that we are not far away In Cashel town, tho’ the bare deal board were our marriage-bed this day! O fair maid, remember the green hill-side, Remember how I hunted about the valleys wide; Time now has worn me; my locks are turn’d to gray; The year is scarce and I am poor -- but send me not, love, away! O deem not my blood is of base strain, my girl; O think not my birth was as the birth of a churl; Marry me and prove me, and say soon you will That noble blood is written on my right side still. My purse holds no red gold, no coin of the silver white; No herds are mine to drive through the long twilight; But the pretty girl that would take me, all bare tho’ I be and lone, O, I’d take her with me kindly to the county Tyrone! O my girl, I can see ’tis in trouble you are; And O my girl, I see ’tis your people’s reproach you bear! -- I am a girl in trouble for his sake with whom I fly, And, O, may no other maiden know such reproach as I!
Confirmed with The Oxford Book of English Verse, ed. by Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch, Oxford: Clarendon, 1919.
Authorship:
- by Samuel Ferguson, Sir (1810 - 1886), "Cashel of Munster" [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by Ivor (Bertie) Gurney (1890 - 1937), "Cashel of Munster", 1920 [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website: 2022-01-16
Line count: 20
Word count: 224