Haste to the wedding.

I'd polished the pewter, I'd tidied the kitchen,
My dresser looked white as a stack in the snow;
And here by the window my skirt I was stitchin',
For I'm very neat with a needle to sew.
Said I, "What's the use o' me mendin' my finery,
Till it is fit for a queen on her throne?
For it's oh dear! There isn't the sigh o' me
Getting' a man and a place o' my own."

"Twas Haste to the Weddin'; and Haste to The Weddin',
I sang as I sat at the window alone;
Movrone, O! 'twas oft I was dreadin'
I'd not got a man with a place o' my own.

"Twas nearly made up once between me and Larry,
That lives o'er the Mountain o' Forth, by the bounds,
With forty-five acres o' land and a quarry--
He'd take me, and welcome, with ninety-five pounds.

When he couldn't get it, he said we'd regret it,
And then he got wed to a widow in town;
And it's oh dear, I lost Larry Petit,
A sensible man with a house of his own.

"Twas Haste to the Weddin'; and Haste to The Weddin',
I sang as I sat at the window alone;
Movrone, O! 'twas oft I was dreadin'
I'd not got a man with a place o' my own.

I found in my first cup o' tea the next Monday,
A lucky red tea-leaf--some stranger to call;
I tried seven times, and he traveled on Sunday,
I wondered who was it was comin' at all.
Who was it but Lanty, last Sunday for Nancy--
He buried his mother last May in Kilcone;
And it's now, dear, I'll marry my fancy---
The boy o' my heart with a place of his own.

"Tis Haste to the Weddin'; and Haste to the Weddin',
Not long I'll be sittin' and singin' alone;
For soon, dear, with young Lanty Reddin,
I'll reign like a queen in a house o' my own.

(from "Songs of Erinn" by Patrick Joseph McCall 1899)