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,
Crooning and moaning and drowsily knitting.

*Merrily, cheerily, noiselessly whirring
Spins the wheel, rings the wheel, while the foot's stirring.
Lightly and brightly and airily ringing,
Sounds the sweet voice of the young maiden singing.

"What's the noise that I hear at the window, I wonder."
"'Tis the little birds chirping the holly bush under."
"What makes you be shoving and moving your stool on,
And singing, all wrong, that old song of 'The Coolun'?"

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 from the stool. Through the lattice step lightly.
We'll rove in the grove while the moon's shining brightly."

*Merrily, cheerily, noiselessly whirring,
Spins the wheel, rings the wheel, while the foot's stirring.
Sprightly and lightly and airily ringing,
Trills the sweet voice of the young maiden singing.

The maid shakes her head, on her lip lays her fingers,
Steals up from the stool, longs to go and yet lingers.
A frightened glance turns to her drowsy grandmother,
Puts one foot on the stool, spins the wheel with the other.

*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.

*Slower and slower and slower the wheel swings.
Lower...and lower...and lower the reel rings.
Ere the reel and the wheel stop their ringing and moving,
Through the grove, the young lovers by moonlight are roving.

By John Waller (1809-1894)
Popularised in the 1950s I think by Delia Murphy
* = a sort of chorus (to a (slightly) different tune