Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Ireland: Vol. V. 1876–79.
The Hills of Sweet Tipperary
By Robert Dwyer Joyce (1830–1883)O M
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.