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.