She saw her soldier leaving, she heard the music sweet, Of "The girl I left behind me" sounding sadly up the street, She saw the shrieking engine, that bore him far away, Then went back to the Staball, to weep for him and pray. And as the summer faded, and gloaming nights came round, A maid anon was kneeling, upon that trysting ground, And fearless of the winter, and of its falling snow, That maiden sweet, and constant, unto her tryst would go. Till on a certain evening, a stranger in the town, Came sauntering up the Staball, and found her kneeling down, He tipped her on the shoulder, and speaking soft, and low, "O what on earth possesses you, to pray upon the snow." She told him all her story then, and why so kneeling there, She told him of her sorrowed heart, the object of her prayer, She told him of her soldier lad, so far across the sea, "I'd like to be a soldier lad, with you to love!" said he. Said he "You're very lonely: If you have need to pray, I'll come agrah! and help you, with 'Amens' if I may, It's very hard acushla! to pray alone each night," And the colleen shyly answered, "She thought perhaps he might." The tryst became more social for while the colleen prayed, The stranger tooted "Amens" unto the kneeling maid, Until at last he muttered "This pantomime must stop, I'll buy the ring to-morrow, I've got a watch to pop!" [Illustration] At length the war was over, she heard the beaten drum, And up again thro' Castlebar, the scarlet men did come, And her heart grew cold within her, to think how wroth he'd be To learn she had been faithless, while he was o'er the sea. Then, pleading to her husband "O hide yerself!" she said, "Aye even up the chimbledy, or undhernate the bed! For if he ketches howld of you, I don't know what he'll do, It's maybe let his gun go off, an' maybe kill the two! I'll try an' coax the grannies, to brake it to him first, For if he's towld it sudden by me, 'twill be the worst, They'll have to put it softly, I cannot be his bride, So while I'm gone to tell them, do you run off an' hide." * * * * * "O break it to him, Grannies, the shocking news," she said "That I have wed another, and him I cannot wed! O put it to him gently, for great will be his pain, That we'll never more be meeting on the Staball hill again." They broke it to him softly, 'twas in a public bar, A foaming pint before him, and on his brow a scar, They broke it to him gently, and spoke it to him plain, He needn't think to meet her, on the Staball hill again. He swigged the pint before him, then heaved a bitter sigh, "What? blow me, your a chaffin'!" "O divil a word o' lie!" Then first he took his shako, and tossed it to the roof, Then to each nervous grannie, "Here take the bloomin' loof."