Poems (Cook)/Norah M'Shane

by Eliza Cook

NORAH M'SHANE.

I've left Ballymornach a long way behind me,
 To better my fortune I've cross'd 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 toss'd 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!
'Tis true I'd no money, but then I'd no sorrow;
 My pockets were light, but my heart had no pain;
And if I but live till the sun shines to-morrow,
 I'll be off to old Ireland and Norah M'Shane.