| Mellow the moonlight to shine is beginning
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| Close by the window young Eileen is spinning
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| Bent o’er the fire her grand grandmother sitting
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| Is crooning and moaning and drowsily knitting
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| Merrily cheerily noisily whirring
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| Swings the wheel spins the wheel while the foot’s stirring
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| Sprightly and lightly and merrily ringing
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| Sounds the sweet voice of the young maiden singing
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| Eileen, a chara, I hear someone tapping
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| 'Tis the ivy dear mother against the glass flapping
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| Eileen, I surely hear somebody sighing
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| 'Tis the sound mother dear of the autumn winds dying
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| There’s a form at the casement, the form of her true love
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| And he whispers with face bent, I’m waiting for you love
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| Get up on the stool, through the lattice step lightly
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| And we’ll rove in the grove while the moon’s shining brightly
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| Merrily cheerily noisily whirring
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| Swings the wheel spins the wheel while the foot’s stirring
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| Sprightly and lightly and merrily ringing
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| Sounds the sweet voice of the young maiden singing
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| The maid shakes her head, on her lips lays her fingers
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| Steals up from the seat, longs to go and yet lingers
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| A frightened glance turns to her drowsy grandmother
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| Puts one foot on the stool spins the wheel with the other
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| Lazily, easily, swings now the wheel round
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| Slowly and lowly is heard now the reel’s sound
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| Noiseless and light to the lattice above her
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| The maid steps, then leaps to the arms of her lover
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| Slower and slower, and slower the wheel swings
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| Lower and lower, and lower the reel rings
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| There the reel and the wheel stop their spinning and moving
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| The grove the young lovers by moonlight are roving |