Poem by Robert Dwyer Joyce

The Hills of Sweet Tipperary

O MARY dear, ’t is long ago
  Since hand in hand together
We sat in pleasant Rossaroe,
  Amidst the blooming heather;
Your eyes were like the lustre shed
  By heaven so blue and airy,
Your cheeks were like the roses red
  Mid green hills of Tipperary.
      O, the hills, the hills so green,
        The hills so high and airy,
      May heaven shine o’er them ever sheen,
        The hills of sweet Tipperary.

We sat while evening’s light illumed
  Comailthe’s stately mountain,
Where heather bells and gorse flowers bloomed
  Round old St. Brendan’s fountain;
The redbreast’s song, the thrush’s lay,
  Like strains from haunts of faery,
Our vespers for the closing day
  Mid green hills of Tipperary.
            O, the hills, etc.

The bubbling well, the ruined cairn
  Where slept some warrior olden,
The foxglove, heath, and waving fern,
  And gorse flowers gay and golden:
The sunlit tree, with shattered arm,
  That eve, true love unchary
Cast o’er them all some magic charm,
  Mid green hills of Tipperary.
            O, the hills, etc.

What vows in that sweet spot we made
  Of true love, fond and tender,
Nor dreamed that joy could falsely fade,
  Like that gay sunset’s splendor;
Nor thought death’s gloom and misery
  Our happiness could vary,
So blindly rapt in love were we,
  Mid green hills of Tipperary.
            O, the hills, etc.

What hopes were doomed, what fortunes fell,
  Since you and I together
Sat by St. Brendan’s sunlit well,
  Amidst the blooming heather!
I wander far from Rossaroe,
  No longer blithe and airy,
And on your grave the shamrocks grow,
  Mid green hills of Tipperary.
      O, the hills, the hills so green,
        The hills so high and airy,
      May heaven shine o’er them ever sheen,
        The hills of sweet Tipperary.

1. Sweet Glengariff’s Water
2. The Siege of Limerick
3. The Blacksmith of Limerick
4. The Oaks of Gleneigh
5. Kilbrannon

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