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| I GRIEVE when I think on the dear happy days of my youth, | |
| When all the bright dreams of this faithless world seem’d truth; | |
| When I stray’d thro’ the green wood, as gay as a mid-summer bee, | |
| In brotherly love with my Draherin O Machree! | |
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| Together we lay in the sweet-scented meadows to rest, | 5 |
| Together we watch’d the gay lark as he sung o’er his nest, | |
| Together we plucked the red fruit of the fragrant hawthorn tree, | |
| And I loved as a sweetheart, my Draherin O Machree! | |
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| His form was straight as a hazel that grows in the glen, | |
| His manners were courteous, and social, and gay amongst men; | 10 |
| His bosom was white as the lily on summer’s green lea— | |
| He’s God’s brightest image was Draherin O Machree! | |
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| Oh! sweet were his words as the honey that falls in the night, | |
| And his young smiling face like the May-bloom was fresh, and as bright; | |
| His eyes were like dew on the flower of the sweet apple tree; | 15 |
| My heart’s spring and summer was Draherin O Machree! | |
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| He went to the wars when proud England united with France; | |
| His regiment was first in the red battle-charge to advance; | |
| But when night drew its veil o’er the gory and life-wasting fray, | |
| Pale, bleeding, and cold lay my Draherin O Machree! | 20 |
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| Now I’m left to weep, like the sorrowful bird of the night; | |
| This earth and its pleasures no more shall afford me delight. | |
| The dark, narrow grave is the only sad refuge for me, | |
| Since I lost my heart’s darling—my Draherin O Machree! | |
