You are my flower of flowers,
Cushla machree!
Light of my darkest hours,
Cushla machree!
You are my spirit’s bright
Sunbeams that banish night;
You are my heart’s delight,
Cushla machree!

You are my golden mine,
Cushla machree!
You are my jewels fine,
Cushla machree!
You are my harp in tune,
You are my rose in June,
You are my sun at noon,
Cushla machree!

You, my first love of youth,
Cushla machree!
Still are my star of truth,
Cushla machree!
Sharing my heavy load,
Smoothing my rugged road,
Cheering our poor abode,
Cushla machree!

Life’s sea at times looked dark,
Cushla machree!
Storms sometimes struck the bark,
Cushla machree!
Love’s lighthouse – you again
Made bright the darkened main –
Home you made home-like then,
Cushla machree!

Glory, fame – great they are,
Cushla machree!
But love is greater far,
Cushla machree!
Greater than hope or faith –
Stronger than mighty death;
True love is heaven’s breath,
Cushla machree!

June! And the fields all basking in the heat!
June! With its flowers and blossoms sweet!
Cloud ships above, their shadows sail below;
And streams kiss banks where willows grow.

Where willows grow and stately poplars stand
I walk and listen to the music bland –
The ripple of the river, the wind’s croon,
That so remind me of another June.

A June when I was full of sanguine hopes
That nerved me to attempt the rugged slopes
That rose ahead, and every obstacle
Standing between me and ambition’s hill.

Thank God for the dear face and sweeter smile
That nerved me most, and shortened every mile.
Still high above me towers ambition’s hill;
Yet glad am I – my love is with me still.

If I rightly remember the month was September,
And I was a-strolling up Mulligan’s lane;
Half-way up the boreen I chanced to meet Noreen –
And Noreen’s the comeliest colleen in Shane.

I thought as I met her I could not do better
Than linger awhile with the lass in the lane;
She said she was hurried, however, she tarried;
Och! She is a sly one, is Noreen of Shane.

Says I, ‘I am sorry to hear of your hurry;
I know that you hate to give anyone pain –
And if you go past now, so terribly fast now,
You’ll make me the mournfulest mortal in Shane.”

Says she, “You are joking, that clay pipe you’re smoking,
If it were now broken, ‘twould give you more pain;
I know you, brave Barney, you’re good at the blarney –
As many a maid know for miles around Shane.”

Says I, “Truth I’m telling, my bosom is swelling
With love that once wakened ne’er slumbers again;
From wild Tulnaverin to far Mullaghcairn
There is not the equal of Noreen of Shane.

And as the stars nightly above us shine brightly
Yet fade out of sight when the sun shines again,
So all I could muster of maids in a cluster,
Would dim ‘neath your lustre, oh, sun beam of Shane.”

Says she, “You’re a poet, without learning to show it” –
And then her sweet laugh lingered long in the lane.
Says I, “you’re a seraph, if you had a pair of
Light wings, you would fare off to Eden from Shane.”

Says she, “You’re as clever a fellow as ever
I met – all, dear Barney, you want is the brain.”
Says I, “You’re mistaken; my heart you have taken –
So all that I want is you, Noreen of Shane”.