A Celebration of Women Writers

"Kitty O'Neil." by Norah M. Holland (1876-1925)
From: Spun-Yarn And Spindrift. by Norah M. Holland. London & Toronto: J. M. Dent & Sons; New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1918, pp. 16-17.

Editor: Mary Mark Ockerbloom

[Page 16] 

KITTY O'NEIL

O A bit of a dance in an Irish street–
  Hogan was there, and Hennessy,
Many a colleen fair and sweet,
  And Kitty O'Neil she danced with me;
Kitty O'Neil, with eyes of brown,
  And feet as light as the flakes o' snow.
Was it last year, O Kitty aroon,
  Or was it a hundred years ago ?

Hogan is out on a Texan plain,
  Hennessy fell in Manila fight,
And I–I am back in New York again
  In my old arm-chair at the Club to-night;
And Kitty O'Neil–the snow lies white
  On the turf above her across the sea,
And stranger colleens are dancing light
  Where Kitty O'Neil once danced with me.

O the Antrim glens and the thrushes' song,
  And the hedges white with blossoming may,
Many a colleen tripping along,
  But none so fair as the one away:
"Musha, God save you! " I to them say,
  "God save you kindly! " they answer me;
I shiver and wake, in the dawning grey,
  And Kitty O'Neil lies over the sea.

[Page 17] 

O a bit of a dance in an Irish street–
  Hogan was there, and Hennessy,
Many a colleen fair and sweet,
  And Kitty O'Neil she danced with me;
Kitty O'Neil, with eyes of brown,
  And feet as light as the flakes of snow.
Was it last year, O Kitty aroon,
  Or was it a hundred years ago ?

[Page 18]

Editor: Mary Mark Ockerbloom