The Book of Irish Ballads

ARRANMORE.

BY THOMAS MOORE.

- Proofing in Progress -

["The inhabitants of Arranmore are still persuaded that in a clear day they can see from this coast Hy-Brasail, or the Inchanted Island, the Paradise of the Pagan Irish, and concerning which they relate a number of romantic stories."--Beaufort's Ancient Topography of Ireland.] 
Oh!  Arranmore, loved Arranmore,
  How oft I dream of thee;
And of those days when, by thy shore,
  I wander'd young and free.
Full many a path I've tried, since then,
  Through pleasure's flow'ry maze,
But ne'er could find that bliss again
  I felt in those sweet days.

How blithe upon the breezy cliffs
  At sunny morn I've stood,
With heart as bounding as the skiffs
  That danced along thy flood;
Or when the western wave rew bright
  With daylight's parting wing,
Have sought that Eden in its light,
  Which dreaming poets sing.

That Eden, where th' immortal brave
  Dwell in a land serene--
Whose bowers beyond the shining wave,
  At sunset oft are seen;
Ah, dream, too full of saddening truth!
  Those mansions o'er the main
Are like the hopes I built in youth,
  As sunny and as vain!

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MacCarthy, Denis Florence (1817-1882), ed. The Book of Irish Ballads. Dublin: James Duffy, 1869.

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Title 17, United States Code, Section 304(b).
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Published in 1998 by Dennis McCarthy
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