I.
In Glengarriff: you see the mountains so bare and so blue;
That always and ever are changing their hue;
The water that looks now dark and forbidding;
Then smooth, blue and shiny alluring and rippling,
The islets and islands,
The fir trees are there,
The home of the heron
The flight of the heron
Are wond’rous to see
But so is the cot
With the Red Fuchsia Tree.
II.
See here comes the mother with fish in her beak,
She flies to the tree top and then what a cheep!
A cheeping and chuntering
And clanking “Oh My”!
Such a terrible noise
To come from so high
With great wings outspread
And long weel drawn inwards
And orange-crossed legs
She lazily flaps right down to the edge
Of the grey rock, blue water, brown seaweed and sedge.
Well the flight of the Heron
Is something to see
But so is the cot
With the Red Fuchsia Tree.
III.
The sheep and the lambs,
The old horned ram,
The ass and the foal,
The curlew that whistles his desolate call.
The sea birds on high
Right on the blue sky,
The man and his boat,
The brook and its song
As it hurries along.
The bog with its flowers
So sweet with the showers,
The sunshine, the clouds,
The breeze and the sea,
The cot with its tatch
And the Red Fuchsia Tree.
IV.
The cot is so tiny
It scarce can be seen,
vYou walk down the grey road
And never would dream
That a cottage stood there
Till you see midst the grey
Rocks, green grass and blue hills,
A wonderful gleam of bright red
Quite close to the roadside
And by the blue sea,
The cot with its brown thatch
And Red Fuchsia Tree.
V.
I can’t make you see it
Or hear it or smell,
There’s so much its so great
Poor words fail to tell it.
The peat smell, the blue smoke,
The green grass and potatoes,
And such kind simple people
Who always give greetings!
“Oh glory be, ’tis the fine evening, Miss,”
They meet you
And greet you
With words such as this.
They are one with the mountains
And islands and sea,
And little brown cot
And the Red Fuchsia Tree.