When thou didst die, they say a fairy’s pipe
Was heard outside the castle door,
And wee folk thick as August corn that’s ripe
Came trooping down the moor,
And bore thy soul with laughter and with light
O’er glen and heathered height.

Friends waked thee till the dawn thrice slanted by
To quench the tapers round thy bier,
And countless decades of the rosary
They numbered with a tear;
But yet they whispered, “She is now a queen,
And clad in rainbow green.”

They set thy form near blessed Finnan’s side,
And wailed the Gaelic death-lament;
But they believed thee happy as a bride
With long-dreamed joys content
Within the land they name with wistful tongue,
“The land where all are young.”