Lyrics

She lived beside the Anner at the foot of Sliabh na mBan
A gentle cailín with mild eyes like the dawn
Her lips were rosebuds her teeth were pearls rare
And a snowdrift neath a beechen bough her neck and nutbrown hair.

How pleasant it was to see her when the bells
Were chiming out their mellow tones through lone wood and grassy dell
And when these young maidens strayed the river’s bank along
Oh the widow’s brown-haired daughter was the fairest of the throng.

Oh brave brave young Irish girls tis well we be call you brave
For the least of all your perils is the stormy ocean wave
You leave your honest parents and cross o’er th’Atlantic foam
For to hoard your hardwon earnings for the helpless ones at home.

Send word to my dear mother say we’ll meet in heaven above
And tell my little sisters that I send them all my love
The angels ever guard you was their dying sister’s prayer
And folded in her letter was a lock of nutbrown hair.

Oh cold and well-nigh calloused  this weary heart has grown
For your hapless state dear Ireland and worries of my own
But a tear my eye does moisten when by Anner’s banks I stray
For the lily of the mountain foot lies withered far away.