Year after year together we have wandered
O’er life’s stern battlefield, in storm and shine;
Your love unfurled above me as a standard
To show the world I’m yours and you are mine.

Your love is my warm mantle when it freezes,
Your love to me is the bright sun on high,
Your love’s the fresh and ventilating breezes
Through heaven’s cloudless corridors that fly.

Your love is a majestic tree, outflinging
Protecting arms that make a canopy,
Where dreams of youth, like happy birds, are singing
To both of us love’s deathless melody.

We’ve climbed some steep hills, braved some stormy weather,
But still, aroon, your love made short the road,
And now we pray that we may be together
While climbing the remaining hills to God.

In the doorway of her cottage
She was framed a cailin shy:
Embodying all the beauty
Of the earth and of the sky.

‘Twas a simple little cottage;
‘Twas a quiet scene and quaint;
Which a bard would love to sing of,
And an artist love to paint.

Though she was not quite in fashion,
With her long and wavy hair,
And that feminine appearance
Which our fathers thought so fair.

Though her home was poor and humble;
And her hands were rough with toil;
There was grace in face and figure,
And the sun shone in her smile.

As the snows among the beeches
Were her skin and wavy curls;
And her teeth and lips and blushes
Were as rubies, and as pearls.

Just a cailin in a doorway
Of her quiet cot, and quaint; –
Where’s the poet who could sing her?
Where’s the artist who could paint?

Mary Machree! Excepting you,
I’ve little or nothing at all;
My purse is light, and my friends are few,
The rent is big, but the farm is small:
Mary Machree, Mary Machree –
You are riches and friends and fame to me!

You are the sun that illumines day,
The stars and moon of my night,
The wind that scatters my clouds away,
My glorious dawn, and my sunset bright:
Mary Machree, Mary Machree –
You are the light of the life of me!

The world is warm and bright and fair –
You, love, have made it so;
Fly from your presence sorrow and care;
And happiness goes wherever you go:
Mary Machree, Mary Machree –
My haven of rest on a stormy sea!

The sunset’s grand when its glory’s half
As great as what is thine;
The music’s sweet, that is like your laugh;
The flower that looks like you is divine:
Mary Machree, Mary Machree –
The glory and joy of the heart of me!