Adare
Lyrics
O sweet Adare, O lovely vale
O soft retreat of sylvan splendor
Nor summer sun nor morning gale
E’er hailed a scene more softly tender
How shall I tell the thousand charms
Within thy verdant bosom dwelling
When lulled in nature’s fostering arms
Soft peace abides and joy excelling
Ye morning airs, how sweet at dawn
The slumbering boughs your song awaken
Or linger o’er the silent lawn
With odor of the harebell taken
Thou rising sun, how richly gleams
Thy smile from far Knockfierna’s mountain
O’er waving woods and bounding streams
And many a grove and glancing fountain
Ye clouds of noon, how freshly there
When summer heats the open meadows
O’er parched hill and valley fair
All coolly lie your veiling shadows
Ye rolling shades and vapors gray
Slow creeping o’er the golden heaven
How soft ye seal the eye of day
And wreathe the dusky brow of even
In sweet Adare the jocund Spring
His notes of odorous joy is breathing
The wild birds in the woodland sing
The wild flowers in the vale are breathing
There winds the Mague, as silver clear
Among the elms so sweetly flowing
There fragrant in the early year
Wild roses on the banks are blowing
The wild duck seeks the sedgy bank
Or dives beneath the glistening billow
Where graceful droop and cluster dank
The osier bright and rustling willow
The hawthorn scents the leafy dale
In thicket lone the stag is belling
And sweet along the echoing vale
The sound of vernal joy is swelling
Notes
Gerald Griffin (1803–1840)
