NORAH M'SHANE by ELIZA COOK

I've left Ballymornach a long way behind me;
To better my fortune I've crossed the big sea;
But I'm sadly alone, not a creature to mind me,
And, faith! I'm as wretched as wretched can be.
I think of the buttermilk, fresh as a daisy;
The beautiful hills and the emerald plain;
And oh! don't I oftentimes think myself crazy,
About that young 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 tossed in the light the thirteen I'd been earning,
And whistled the anthem of "Erin-go-bragh."
In truth, I believe that I'm half broken-hearted;
To my country and love I must get back again;
For I've never been happy at all since I parted
From sweet Ballymornach and Norah M`Shane.
Oh! there's something so dear in the cot I was born in,
Though 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!

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