SHAMROCK-L Archives

From: "the_researcher" <>
Subject: [SH] poems, songs, Mourne & Kilkeel
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 00:11:54 -0000

DICK McKNIGHT'S FAREWELL

First flower of the earth, sweet gem of the ocean,
No longer your green fields will I wander again;
By cruel oppression, by rent and taxation
I was banished afar from my own native plain.

Ye Mountains of Mourne, your cataracts so beautiful,
Your high lofty peaks shall I ne'er see ye more?
Ye blue rippling waters that roll in succession,
Recoil round the borders of sweet Mourne Shore.

How oftimes I roamed that beautiful landscape,
Where Phoebus went down on his course to the west
O'er Carlingford Mountains that nod to the ocean,
Where the sea fowl and plover resort to their nest.

I will never forget that sad Sunday morning,
The morn I rose from the hearth of my cot,
My children around me did carelessly prattle,
To me that's a moment can ne'er be forgot.

Adieu, Ballykeel, where oftimes I wandered,
By Walmsley's green groves oftimes I serenade
Down by the bleach mill on a nice summer evening,
Where the blackbird and linnet did sing in the shade.

The hum of the bleach mill I oft heard with pleasure,
Over Mallock's clear hills where the fountains do flow,
Where the trout and the salmon do sport there at leisure,
Where the violet and primrose spontaneously grow.

I will never forg-et that unhappy parting,
When I parted my friends upon Warrenpoint quay,
The barque on the water had got into motion,
The steam tug so slowly did haul us away.

If it had been decreed, I'd rather have tarried
Along with my friends to go back home again,
But sad was my fate, when on board I was hurried,
To ne'er see my friends in sweet Mourne again.

So now we're safe landed in British North America,
To sail up her lakes was no pleasure to me;
I was houseless and homeless, surrounded by strangers,
Each one who got the chance took advantage of me.


Until that I met with a few friends from Mourne,
So kind and so free, they took me by the hand,
With their tables well spread and their arms wide extended,
To welcome the stranger from old Ireland.

There's plenty of work here in British North America,
The sugar they take from the tall maple tree,
But Mourne, sweet Mourne, the place I was born in,
There's no other country has such charms for me.

MY OWN COUNTY DOWN

With thy back against the ancient land, thy bosom to the tide,
Like a gallant ship at anchor triumphant thou dost ride;
>From Warrenpoint to Holywood each hill and valley smiles
Lough Strangford bathes the margins of three hundred fairy isles;
Dear to my heart thou still shalt be, let fortune smile or frown,
Home of my joyous infancy, my own County Down.

Beside thy ancient castles I have sought the earliest flowers,
Along the lovely bleaching-greens I've whiled the summer hours;
I've launched me for Ram's Island shore a down the River Bann.
And in an Ardglass fishing smack have reached the Isle of Man
>From Newry to Belfast I've strayed by farm and market town,
Through the highways and the byways of my own County Down.

I've scaled the lofty Donard's side, to meet the rising sun,
I've cleft the wave of Lagan when my schoolboys task was done,
With blood as pure as mountain breeze I've sniffed thy mountain air,
And proved in boyhood's golden years what boyish hearts will dare,
And now a vigorous heart and limb such youthful pastimes crown,
Thy sons shall be a wall of fire, my own County Down.


>From many a graceful hillock's top the gladdened eye surveys-
In Ards, Lecale, or Dufferin, Kilwarlin, or the Maze-
The snug and sheltered cottage, the hill of waving grain,
The marks of peace and industry throughout the fruitful plain ;
The ivy on the village church that wraps its turrets brown:
'Tis a county well worth living for, my own County Down.

Raymond

http://www.raymondscountydownwebsite.com

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• [SH] poems, songs, Mourne & Kilkeel by "the_researcher" <>