# Five Excellent New Songs (c. 1800, "Gragal Ma Chree")/Gragal ma Chree

Gragal ma Chree
I am a young lover that’s ſorely oppreſs’d, Enthrall’d by a fair maid and can find no reſt, Her name I’ll not mention thought wounded I be; By Cupid’s keen arrow for Gragal ma Chree. When firſt I beheld this female moſt fair, My eyes were celips’d by her beauty ſo rare; By her killing glances ſhe ſo enchanted me, In anguiſh I‘ll languiſh for Gragal ma Chree. Her lips are like coral her cheeks like the roſe Her ſkin is like lillies, her eyes black as ſloes, She is handſome and proper in every degree, No female can equal ſweet Gragal ma Chree But her cruel parents were ſharp and unkind, I durſt not attempt to diſcover my mind, My grief to reveal for that ſweet lovely ſhe, And my poor heart’s bleeding for Gragal Chree. O had I poſſeſſion of Newington ſtore, With Breakaduff’s treaſure, was it ten times more, And wealth of great Dunmore I’d part with it moſt free, Diſdaining all riches for Cragal ma Chree. I propos’d to tell that ſweet innocent dove, All by the round letter that ſhe was my love. Expecting that evening with pleaſure to ſee, Some fine talk of love from ſweet Gragal ma Chree. But the cruel villain which I did intruſt Of all men breathing I’m ſure he’s the worſt, For he prov’d a deceiver and a traitor to me, He never gave my letter to Gragal ma Chree. Straight way to her father he went out of hand, And gave him my letter as I underſtand, When the old man did read it he ſwor bitterly, He would alter the caſe with Gragal ma Chree,
He ſaid to his daughter with a frightful diſdain Here is a love letter from your darling ſwain, So never deny if it’s true you may ſee, He titles you here his ſweet Gragal ma Chree. His lovely ſweet daughter ſhe fell on her knees, Saying honoured father do as you pleaſe, For if by wild horſes I tortur’d ſhould be, I never ſhall deny I’m his Gragal ma Chree. A horſe was made ready without more delay, To ſome foreign country ſhe was ſent away. Though I have been ſearching this whole country I never could hear of ſweet Gragal ma Chree, Now I will travel Ireland all round, In hopes that in ſome part my love may be found, And if I don’t find her I’ll mourn conſtantly, And my laſt dying words will be Gragal ma Chree.
The Answer
Hard by a clear river in the ſweet month of May, In ſearch of my true love I happened to ſtray, I head a young damſel there loudly complain, In ſorrow for parting from her darling ſwain. O cruel parents wherever you be, That baniſh’d my darling ſweee Jamie from me, No other man breathing my favour ſhall gain, The pride of all nature’s my own darling ſwain Through lonely wild deſarts and hills I’ll roam, To wild birds and fiſhes I’ll make my moan, All riches and grandeur I now diſdain, Thro’ the world I’d wonder for my darling ſwain. His breath is more ſweet than the roſes in June His eyes are like diamonds or like orbs of the moon, His ſkin’s like clear amber juſt from the mine He’s cut up to the perfection my own darling ſwain,
My love he is proper he’s and he’s trim, There is none in the world that can equal him, All ſorrow, and trouble I’ll endure without pain Was I ſore to meet with my darling ſwain, My father he thought then his point for to gain, By parting his daughter from her darling ſwain, But for to vex I ever will be, Jamies true and conſtant young Gragal ma Chree.