The Spinning Wheel
Mellow the moonlight to shine is beginning
Close by the window young Eileen is spinning
Bent o'er the fire her blind grandmother sitting
Is crooning and moaning and drowsily knitting.
Chorus
Merrily, cheerily, noiselessly whirring
Swings the wheel, spins the wheel while the foot's stirring
Spritely and lightly and airily ringing
Trills the sweet voice of the young maiden singing
Eileen, a chara, I hear someone tapping
'T is the ivy dear mother against the glass clapping
Eily I surely hear somebody sighing
'T is the sound mother dear of the autumn winds dying.
Chorus
What's the noise that I hear at the window I wonder?
'T is the little birds chirping, the holly-bush under
What makes you be shoving and moving your stool on?
And singing all wrong the old song of "The Coolin'"?
Chorus
There's a form at the casement, the form of her true love
And he whispers with face bent, "I'm waiting for you, love
Get up on the stool, through the lattice step lightly
And we'll rove in the grove while the moon's shining brightly."
Chorus
The maid shakes her head, on her lips lays her fingers
Steps up from the stool, longs to go and yet lingers
A frightened glance turns to her drowsy grandmother
Puts a foot on the stool, spins the wheel with the other.
Chorus
Lazily, easily, swings now the wheel round
Slowly and lowly is heard now the reel's sound
Noiseless and light to the lattice above her
The maid steps, then leaps to the arms of her lover.
Chorus
Slower and slower and slower the wheel swings
Lower and lower and lower the reel rings
E're the reel and the wheel stopped their ringing and moving
Through the grove the young lovers by moonlight are roving.
Chorus
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