Donal Ogue “Donal Ogue” (Young Dan) is probably the most famous of Irish songs, and as popular in the Scottish Isles Donal Ogue, when you cross the water, Take me with you to be your partner, And at fair and market you’ll be well looked after, And you can sleep with the Greek king’s daughter. You said you’d meet me, but you were lying, Beside the sheepfold when the day was dying, I whistled first, then I started hailing, But all I heard was the young lambs’ wailing. You said you’d give me—an airy giver!— A golden ship with masts of silver, Twelve market towns to be my fortune And a fine white mansion beside the ocean. You said you’d give me—’tis you talk lightly!— Fish-skin gloves that would fit me tightly, Bird-skin shoes when I went out walking, And a silken dress would set Ireland talking. Ah, Donal Ogue, you’d not find me lazy, Like many a high-born expensive lady; I’d do your milking and I’d nurse your baby, And if you were set on I’d back you bravely. To Lonely Well I wander sighing, ’Tis there I do my fill of crying, When I see the world but not my charmer And all his locks the shade of amber. I saw you first on a Sunday evening Before the Easter, and I was kneeling. ’Twas about Christ’s passion that I was reading, But my eyes were on you and my own heart bleeding. My mother said we should not be meeting, That I should pass and not give yOu greeting; ’Twas a good time surely she chose for cheating With the stable bare and the horse retreating. You might as well let him have me, mother, And every penny you have moreover; Go beg your bread like any other But him and me don’t seek to bother. Black as a sloe is the heart inside me, Black as a coal with the griefs that drive me, Black as a boot print on shining hallways, And ’twas you that blackened it ever and always. For you took what’s before me and what’s behind me, You took east and west when you wouldn’t mind me, Sun and moon from my sky you’ve taken, And God as well, or I’m much mistaken. Source: O'Connor, Frank (tr); Kings, Lords, & Commons: An Anthology from the Irish; 1962; London; Macmillan & Co; p.128