The foggy dew

Oh! a wan cloud was drawn

O'er the dim, weeping dawn,

As to Shannon's side I returned at last;

And the heart in my breast

For the girl I loved best

Was beating -- ah, beating, how loud and fast!

While the doubts and the fears

Of the long, aching years

Seemed mingling their voices with the moaning flood;

Till full in my path,

Like a wild water-wraith,

My true love's shadow lamenting stood.

But the sudden sun kissed

The cold, cruel mist

Into dancing showers of diamond dew;

The dark flowing stream

Laughed back to his beam,

And the lark soared singing aloft in the blue;

While no phantom of night,

But a form of delight

Ran with arms outspread to her darling boy:

And the girl I love best

On my wild, throbbing breast

Hid her thousand treasures, with a cry of joy.