Foster & Allen - The Spinning Wheel

Mellow the moonlight to shine is beginning

Close by the window young Eileen is spinning

Bent o'er the fire her blind grandmother sitting

Is crooning and moaning and drowsily knitting

Merrily, cheerily, noiselessly whirring

Swings the wheel, spins the wheel, while the foot's stirring

Sprightly and brightly and airily ringing

Thrills the sweet voice of the young maiden singing

"Eileen, a chara, I hear someone tapping"

"Tis the ivy, dear mother, against the glass flapping"

"Eily, I surely hear somebody sighing"

"Tis the sound, mother dear, of the autumn winds dying"

Merrily, cheerily, noiselessly whirring

Swings the wheel, spins the wheel, while the foot's stirring

Sprightly and brightly and airily ringing

Thrills the sweet voice of the young maiden singing

There's a form at the casement, the form of her true love

And he whispers with face bent: "I'm waiting for you, love"

"Get up on the stool, through the lattice step lightly

We'll rove in the grove while the moon's shining brightly"

Merrily, cheerily, noiselessly whirring

Swings the wheel, spins the wheel, while the foot's stirring

Sprightly and brightly and airily ringing

Thrills the sweet voice of the young maiden singing

Slower and slower and slower the wheel swings

Lower and lower and lower the reel rings

Ere the reel and the wheel stopped their ringing and moving

Through the grove the young lovers by moonlight are roving