O what is the matter, daughter?
Why pace you on the grass?
O father, I am as weary
as ever woman was.

 I have seen the ban sidhe, father,
by the glow of the dying fire;
at times she goes in shimmering clothes
and is such as all men desire,

but times she squats by the embers,
plucks at her soiled green gown
with broken nails, and soundless wails
drip from her darting tongue.

 Though she built a fairy tower
filled with pipes and song and dance,
yet tumbled stones and bracken
are all her inheritance.

 The cry of the ban sidhe starts within
where she cannot tend or care
and it echoes in secret hollows
before it breaks in the air.

 She cannot rest and cannot sleep
for fear of that abyss;
for all she has are glamours,
powers of hurt and bliss:

to kill a child, or sour milk,
or grant a lover's boon.
O guard the bairns, my daughter.
Keep vigil in their room.

 She has not harmed my children,
touched not a hair of their head -
but between the late and early
she crept into my bed,

 where closer than any lover's been
she dug deep in my blood and bone:
the ban sidhe took my heart of flesh
and left me a heart of stone.

 I have searched the house, my daughter;
I have heard no ban sidhe's cries.
O father, I wail for I cannot weep.
You look into her eyes.