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The Wind That Shakes the Barley

Robert Dwyer Joyce
Language: English


Robert Dwyer Joyce


I sat within the valley green,
I sat there with my true love
My heart strove to choose between,
the old love and the new love
The old for her, the new that made
me think on Ireland dearly
While soft the wind blew down the glen
and shook the golden barley

'Twas hard the mournful words to frame
to break the ties that bound us
But harder still to bear the shame
of foreign chains around us
And so I said, "The mountain glen
I'll seek at morning early
And join the brave united men (1)",
while soft wind shake the barley

T'was sad I kissed away her tears
Her arms around me clinging
When to my ears that fateful shot
Came out the wildwood ringing
The bullet pierced my true love’s breast
In life’s young spring so early
And there upon my breast she died
While soft wind shook the barley

I bore her to some mountain stream
And many’s the summer blossom
I placed with branches soft and green
About her gore-stained bosom
I wept and kissed her clay-cold corpse
Then rushed o’er vale and valley
My vengeance on the foe to wreak
While soft wind shook the barley

T'was blood for blood without remorse
I took at Oulart Hollow(2)
I placed my true love's clay cold
corpse
where mine full soon may follow
Around her grave I wandered drear,
noon, night and morning early
With aching heart when e'er I hear
the wind that shakes the barley
(1) l termine united sta ad indicare la Society of United Irishmen associazione fondata nel 1791 per riformare il parlamento irlandese, poi evoluta in un organismo rivoluzionario Si dicevano uniti perchè erano uomini irlandesi di tutte le religioni e perseguivano l'unione di tutti gli irlandesi a prescindere dalla loro osservanza religiosa e provenienza sociale affinchè la minoranza anglicana privilegiata concedesse piena uguaglianza politica ai presbiteriani e ai cattolici. La ribellione del 1789 è conosciuta anche con il nome di United Irishmen Rebellion
(2)



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