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 Bow Are
Black and Brown Must Meanwhile Gather Grey

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 Bally Shannon, And
The Winding Banks Of Erne.

William Allingham
(Irish Poet 1824-1889)