A SPRIG OF IRISH HEATHER

An Irish mother writing to her boy so far away

                Said: “ I meant to send a shamrock to wear on Patrick’s Day

But the shamrock is a tender plant, it's beauty would have fled

                So a sprig of Irish heather I am sending you instead.

​

( Chorus)

Just a sprig of Irish heather , that has seen all kinds of weather:

                Withstood the heat of Summer and survived long winter’s snow.

I have sent it to remind you of the friends you left behind you,

                In Tyrone among the bushes and the days of long ago.

You remember Corradinna and the Mass Rock standing there,

                Where we often knelt together, while you lisped a childish prayer.

Many times since then I’ve wandered there, when the evening shadows steal,

                And I plucked this heather from the sod where once you used to kneel.

( Chorus)

The years from me are flitting, and I know I’m growing old,

                By the fireside lonely sitting when the nights are dark and cold.

But I know your smile would cheer me, and make sunshine out of gloom—

                So come back to me, a cushla, when the heather is in bloom.