The writings of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume 5.
John Greenleaf Whittier, Ed.

She whipped the maids, and starved the kern!
     And drove away the poor;
“Ah, woe is me!” the old lord said,
     ‘I rue my bargain sore!’

This lord he had a daughter fair,
     Beloved of old and young,
And nightly round the shealing fires
     Of her the gleeman sung.

“As sweet and good is young Kathleen
     As Eve before her fall;”
So sang the harper at the fair,
     So harped he in the hall.

“Oh come to me, my daughter dear!
     Come sit upon my knee,
For looking in your face, Kathleen,
     Your mother's own I see!”

He smoothed and smoothed her hair away,
     He kissed her forehead fair:
“It is my darling Mary's brow,
     It is my darling's hair!”

Oh then spake up the angry dame,
     ‘Get up, get up,’ quoth she,
“I'll sell ye over Ireland,
     I'll sell ye o'er the sea!”

She clipped her glossy hair away,
     That none her rank might know,
She took away her gown of silk
     And gave her one of tow,

And sent her down to Limerick town,
     And to a captain sold
This daughter of an Irish lord
     For ten good pounds in gold.