My name is Patrick Sheehan, and my years are thirty-four;
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Tipperary is my native place, not far from Galtymore;
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I came of honest parents, but now they're lying low;
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Though' many's the pleasant days we spent in the Glen of Aherlow.
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My father died; I closed his eyes, outside the cabin door;
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For the landlord and the sheriff too, were there the day before,
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And then my lovin' mother, and my sisters three, also,
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Were forced to go with broken hearts, from the Glen of Aherlow
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For three long months, in search of work, I wandered far and near;
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I then went to the poorhouse to see my mother dear;
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The news I heard near broke my heart, but still in all my woe,
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I blessed the friends who made their graves in the Glen of Aherlow.
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Bereft of home and kith and kin, with plenty all around,
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I starved within my cabin, and slept upon the ground;
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But cruel as my lot was, I never did hardship know,
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Till I joined the English army, far away from Aherlow.
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"Rouse up there," cried the corporal, "Ya lazy Irish hound!
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Why don't you hear the bugle, its call to arms to sound? "
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I found I had been dreaming of the days long, long ago,
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And I woke upon Sebastopol, and not in Aherlow
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I tried to find my musket, how dark I thought the night!
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O blessed God! It wasn't dark, it was the broad daylight!
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And when I found that I was blind, my tears began to flow,
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And I longed for even a pauper's grave in the Glen of Aherlow.
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A poor neglected mendicant, I wander Dublin's streets
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My nine months' pension it being out, I beg from all I meet;
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As I joined my country's tyrants, my face I can never show,
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Amongst my dear old neighbors in the Glen of Aherlow.
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So Irish youths, dear countrymen, take heed in what I say;
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For if you join the English ranks, you'll surely rue the day
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And whenever you're tempted, a-soldiering to go.
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Remember poor blind Sheehan from the Glen of Aherlow.
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Patrick Sheehan
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Andy M. Stewart |