Norah M’Shane.
I’ve left Ballymornach a long way behind me,
To better my fortune I’ve cross’d the big sea;
But I’m sadly alone, not a creature to mind me,
And faith I’m as wretch’d as wretch’d can be;
I think of the buttermilk, fresh as the daisy,
The beautiful halls and the emerald plain,
And, ah! don’t I oftentimes think myself crazy
About that black-eyed rogue, Norah M’Shane.
I sigh for the turf-pile so cheerfully burning,
When barefoot I trudged it from toiling afar,
When I toss’d in the light the thirteen I’d been earning,
And whistled the tune of “Erin go Bragh.”
In truth, I believe that I’m half broken-heart’d,
To my country and love I must get back again
For I’ve never been happy at all since I part’d
From sweet Ballymornach and Norah M’Shane.
Oh! there’s something so dear in the cot I was born in,
Tho’ the walls are but mud and the roof is but thatch;
How familiar the grunt of the pigs in the morning,—
What music in lifting the rusty old latch!
’Tis true I’d no money, but then I’d no sorrow,
My pockets were light, but my head had no pain;
And if I but live till the sun shines to-morrow,
I’ll be off to dear Erin and Norah M’Shane.