The Wind that Shakes the Barley

I sat me in the barley green. I sat me with my true love.
My sad heart drove the two between; the old love and the new love.
The old for the new, that made me think on Ireland dearly,
While soft the wind blew down the glade and shook the golden barley.

‘Twas hard the woeful words to frame, to break the ties that bound us.
And harder still to bear the shame of foreign chains around us.
And so, I said, the mountain glen I’ll meet at morning early,
I’ll join the bold united men where soft winds shake the barley.

‘Twas sad, I kissed away her tears, my fond arm ‘round her flinging.
When a rifle shot burst down our ears from out the wild wood ringing.
A bullet pierced my true love’s side, in life’s young spring so early.
And on my breast, in blood she died where soft winds shook the barley

But blood for blood without remorse, I’ve taken to the hollows.
I’ve laid my true love’s claylike corpse where I full soon must follow
Around her grave I’ve wandered drear, new night and morning early.
With breaking heart whene’er I hear the wind that shakes the barley