Paul Durcan - The Girl with the Keys to Pearse's Cottage lyrics

When I was sixteen I met a dark girl; Her dark hair was darker because her smile was so bright; She was the girl with the keys to Pearse's Cottage; And her name was Cáit k**ann. The cottage was built into the side of a hill; I recall two windows and a cosmic peace Of bare brown rooms and on whitewashed walls Photographs of the pa**ionate and pale Pearse. I recall wet thatch and peeling jambs And how all was best seen from below in the field; I used to sit in the rushes with ledger-book and pencil Compiling poems of pa**ion for Cáit k**ann. Often she used linger on the sill of a window; Hands by her side and brown legs akimbo; In sun-red skirt and moon-black blazer; Looking toward our strange world wide-eyed. Our world was strange because it had no future; She was America-bound at summer's end. She had no choice but to leave her home - The girl with the keys to Pearse's Cottage. O Cáit k**ann, O Cáit k**ann, You have gone with your keys from your own native place. Yet here in this dark - El Greco eyes blaze back From your Connemara postman's daughter's proudly mortal face.