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Home  »  The World’s Best Poetry  »  Kitty of Coleraine

Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.

III. Love’s Beginnings

Kitty of Coleraine

Charles Dawson Shanly (1811–1875)

AS beautiful Kitty one morning was tripping

With a pitcher of milk, from the fair of Coleraine,

When she saw me she stumbled, the pitcher it tumbled,

And all the sweet buttermilk watered the plain.

“O, what shall I do now—’t was looking at you now!

Sure, sure, such a pitcher I ’ll ne’er meet again!

’T was the pride of my dairy: O Barney M’Cleary!

You ’re sent as a plague to the girls of Coleraine.”

I sat down beside her, and gently did chide her,

That such a misfortune should give her such pain.

A kiss then I gave her; and ere I did leave her,

She vowed for such pleasure she ’d break it again.

’T was hay-making season—I can’t tell the reason—

Misfortunes will never come single, ’t is plain;

For very soon after poor Kitty’s disaster

The devil a pitcher was whole in Coleraine.