Eliza Hamilton Dunlop (c.1796-1880), words: Your Eyes Have the Twin-Star's Light (Tune: The Foggy Dew) (Sydney, 1839); first modern performance; Koen van Stade (tenor), Neal Peres Da Costa (pianoforte); Elizabeth Bay House, Sydney, 27 February 2022

Abstract

The Irish poet Eliza Hamilton Dunlop arrived in NSW with her family in January 1838, and over the next two years her series of eight ‘Songs of exile’ were successively published in Sydney newspapers. The most famous of these is her lament for a murdered child, ‘The Aboriginal mother’, written in response to a recent colonial atrocity, the Myall Creek Massacre, and also included in this concert. The second song performed here, written for the Irish tune ‘Foggy dew’, is the lullaby of an emigrant mother to a beloved child she has left behind. Words (first verse only): Your eyes have the twin-star's light, ma croidhe, / Mo Cuisle INGHEAN ban; / And your swan-like neck is dear to me, / Mo Cailin og alain: / And dear is your fairy foot so light, / And your dazzling milk-white hand, / And your hair! it's a thread of the golden light / That was spun in the rainbow's band. The full words and music can be viewed here: https://www.sydney.edu.au/paradisec/australharmony/dunlop-eliza-hamilton.php#1839-your-eyes-have