Now measure from the Commons down to each end of the Purt, Round the Abbey, Moy, and Knather,-- I wish no one any hurt; The Main Street, Back Street, College Lane, the Mall, and Portnasun, If any foes of mine are there, I pardon every one. I hope that man and womankind will do the same by me; For my heart is sore and heavy at voyaging the sea. My loving friends I'll bear in mind, and often fondly turn To think of Belashanny, and the winding banks of Erne. If ever I'm a money'd man, I mean, please God, to cast My golden anchor in the place where youthful years were pass'd; Though heads that now are black and brown must meanwhile gather gray, New faces rise by every hearth, and old ones drop away-- Yet dearer still that Irish hill than all the world beside; It's home, sweet home, where'er I roam through lands and waters wide. And if the Lord allows me, I surely will return To my native Belashanny, and the winding banks of Erne. ABBEY ASAROE Gray, gray is Abbey Asaroe, by Belashanny town, It has neither door nor window, the walls are broken down; The carven-stones lie scatter'd in briar and nettle-bed; The only feet are those that come at burial of the dead. A little rocky rivulet runs murmuring to the tide, Singing a song of ancient days, in sorrow, not in pride; The boortree and the lightsome ash across the portal grow, And heaven itself is now the roof of Abbey Asaroe. It looks beyond the harbour-stream to Gulban mountain blue; It hears the voice of Erna's fall,-- Atlantic breakers too; High ships go sailing past it; the sturdy clank of oars Brings in the salmon-boat to haul a net upon the shores; And this way to his home-creek, when the summer day is done, Slow sculls the weary fisherman across the setting sun; While green with corn is Sheegus Hill, his cottage white below; But gray at every season is Abbey Asaroe. There stood one day a poor old man above its broken bridge; He heard no running rivulet, he saw no mountain-ridge; He turn'd his back on Sheegus Hill, and view'd with misty sight The Abbey walls, the burial-ground with crosses ghostly white; Under a weary weight of years he bow'd upon his staff, Perusing in the present time the former's epitaph; For, gray and wasted like the walls, a figure full of woe, This man was of the blood of them who founded Asaroe.