Ballads of Irish chivalry :: :: University of Virginia Library

Ballads of Irish chivalry

By Robert Dwyer Joyce: Edited, with Annotations, by his brother P. W. Joyce

Joyce, Robert Dwyer (1836-1883)

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THE NEW-MOWN HAY.

[_]

Air: “Young Roger was a Ploughboy.”

I

Young Johnnie, in the autumn,
To Limerick he came,
And none knew what brought him,
And none knew his name;
But he sat by Bessie Gray
On that sunny autumn day,
And he told her sweet romances 'mid the new-mown hay.
Then O, for fields lighted
By sweet autumn's ray,
When fond vows are plighted
'Mid the new-mown hay.

II

Young Johnnie had his dwelling
Down fast by the Lee,
And in manly sports excelling,
But few like him you'd see;

And so thought Bessie Gray
Since that sunny autumn day
When he told her sweet romances 'mid the new-mown hay.
Then O, for fields lighted
By sweet autumn's ray,
When fond vows are plighted
'Mid the new-mown hay.

III

Young Johnnie could remember
His vows and his flame;
He came in December,
And all knew his name;
And there was a wedding gay,
And the bride was Bessie Gray,
And all from these romances 'mid the new-mown hay.
Then O, for fields lighted
By sweet autumn's ray,
When fond vows are plighted
'Mid the new-mown hay.