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27225.22.30

HARVARD
UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY
OCT 27 1941

PREFACE.

Taylor frende

The Publisher, in presenting this "Universal Irish Song
Book," confidently asserts, that in no other collection in Ire-
land or America will be found so many of the Songs of Ire-
land as in this volume.

It embodies all the standard songs of the different classes;
Amatory, National, Convivial, Martial and Sentimental that
enthused or amused the Irish people in Ireland, and their
children, the Irish-Americans, for generations, and which will
always continue popular with them.

A selection of the best of that crude class mainly composed
in the last century by country school-masters and others
with a smattering of poetic taste, and which are generally de-
signated "Come all Ye's," are included for the purpose of
satisfying the wishes of some parties who having heard them
in their youth, still retain a more pleasing recollection of them
than their literary merit warrants.

Notwithstanding the magnitude of the work and its com-
pleteness in detail, it is placed at a price that it is hoped will
cause it to supersede all the fractional collections heretofore
issued.

NEW YORK, February, 1884.

P. J. KENEDY.

COPYRIGHT, 1884. P. J. KENEDY.

THE

UNIVERSAL

IRISH SONG BOOK.

ON MUSIC.

AIR.-" Banks of Banna."

WHEN through life unblest we rove,
Losing all that made life dear,
Should some notes we used to love,
In days of boyhood, meet our ear,
Oh! how welcome breathes the strain!
Wakening thoughts that long have slept,
Kindling former smiles again

In faded eyes that long have wept.

Like the gale, that sighs along
Beds of oriental flowers,

Is the grateful breath of song,

That once was heard in happier hours;
Fill'd with balm the gale sighs on,

Though the flowers have sunk in death;
So, when pleasure's dream is gone,
Its memory lives in Music's breath.

Music, oh how faint, how weak,
Language fades before thy spell!
Why should Feeling ever speak,

When thou canst breathe her soul so well?

Friendship's balmy words may feign,

Love's are even more false than they ;

Oh! 'tis only music's strain

Can sweetly soothe, and not betray.

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TO-MORROW, comrade, we

On the battle-plain must be,

There to conquer, or both lie low!

The morning star is up

But there's wine still in the cup,

And we'll take another quaff, ere we go, boy, go;
We'll take another quaff ere we go.

'T is true, in manliest eyes

A passing tear will rise,

When we think of the friends we leave lone;

But what can wailing do?

See, our goblet's weeping too!

[our own!

With its tears we'll chase away our own, boy,

With its tears we'll chase away our own.

But daylight's stealing on;

The last that o'er us shone

Saw our children around us play;

The next-ah! where shall we

And those rosy urchins be?

[boy, away;

But no matter-grasp thy sword and away,

No matter-grasp thy sword and away!

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One heartfelt pray to heaven,

[hurra!

Then, for Erin and her cause, boy, hurra! hurra!

Then, for Erin and her cause, hurra!

THE GROVES OF BLARNEY.

R. A. MILLIKEN. Born, 1767; Died, 1815.
THE groves of Blarney
They look so charming,
Down by the purling

Of sweet silent streams;
Being banked with posies
That spontaneous grow there,
Planted in order

By the sweet rock close.
'Tis there's the daisy
And the sweet carnation,
The blooming pink,

And the rose so fair;
The daffodowndilly-
Likewise the lily,

All flowers that scent
The sweet fragrant air.

'Tis Lady Jeffers

That owns this station;
Like Alexander,

Or Queen Helen fair;
There's no commander
In all the nation,
For emulation,

Can with her compare.
Such walls surround her,
That no nine-pounder
Could dare to plunder

Her place of strength;
But Oliver Cromwell,
Her he did pommell,
And made a breach
In her battlement.

There's gravel walks there,
For speculation,

And conversation

In sweet solitude.

'Tis there the lover

May hear the dove, or

The gentle plover

In the afternoon;

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