The Dancing Days

'T IS a year and a day back to Kindree
Where the gerrls had no shoes to their feet!
'Tis many a mile to the ould town
Where the childer' wanst danced in the street!

Here's bread to be had for the breakin';
Here's moilin' and frettin' and froth!
But thinkin' av Home, how me heart's blood
Must jig like a wave o' Lake Roth!

Av Home, och, where down thro' the ould street
Wid his pipin' went Ragged MacGee—
And faith, how the colleens thrailed round at his heels
And all jigged like the leaves av a tree!

The walls were a tumble av stone-heaps,
The skim-milk wid wather was thinned,
And the thatch it was broken and mossgrown—
But we danced like the grass in the wind!

Not worth a traneen was the village,
But no wan was sthoppin' to fret—
And I'll wager they're goin' like a tree-top today,
Faith, dancin' and starvin' there yet!