Lovely Mary Donnelly

From The Birmingham Age-Herald, February 17, 1913.
 By William Allingham.
 

 O lovely Mary Donnelly, it’s you I love the best!
 If fifty girls were around you, I’d hardly see the rest;
 Be what it may the time of day, the place be where it will,
 Sweet looks of Mary Donnelly, they bloom before me still.
 
 Oh, you’re the flower of womankind, in country or in town;
 The higher I exalt you, the lower I’m cast down.
 If some great lord should come this way and see your beauty bright,
 And ask you to be his lady, I’d own it was but right.
 
 Oh, might we live together in lofty palace hall
 Where joyful music rises, and where scarlet curtains fall!
 Oh, might we live together in a cottage mean and small,
 With sods of grass the only roof, and mud the only wall!
 
 O lovely Mary Donnelly, your beauty’s my distress—
 It’s far too beauteous to be mine, but I’ll never wish it less;
 The proudest place would fit your face, and I am poor and low
 But blessings be about you, dear, wherever you may go!