The Day is Spent and Gone Mary (OT2003-3014-005)

The Day is Spent and Gone Mary (OT2003-3014-005)

Song excerpted from audio recording OT2003-3014, part of VFC2003-0007 Margaret MacArthur Collection.

Margaret MacArthur Collection -- VFC2003-0007. Vermont Folklife Center Archive, Vermont Folklife Center, Middlebury, Vermont, United States of America.

1964-07-17

en

VFC2003-0007 OT2003-3014-005

Vermont Folklife Center

The Day is Spent and Gone Mary

The Emigrant's Last Farewell

I'm sitting on the stile Mary
Where we sat side by side
On a bright morning long ago
When first you were my bride

The grass is springing fresh and green
And a lark sang loud and high
The red was on your cheek Mary
And the love-light in your eye

They day is spent and gone Manry
The little church stands near
The place where we were wed Mary
I see the spire from here

But the churchyard lies between Mary
And my step might break your rest
For I've laid you darling down to sleep
With your baby on your breast

I'm bidding you a long fairwell
My Mary kind and true
But I'll not forget your darling
In the land I'm going to

They say there's bread and work for all
And the sun shines always there
But I'll not forget old Ireland
Where it twenty times as fair

And oft at evening as I stray
I sit and shut my eyes
And my thoughts will travel back again
To the place where Mary lies

And I think I see the little stile
While we sat side by side
That spring that springing corn and bright May morn
When first you were my bride

References:

• "The Emigrant's Last Farewell," typewritten lyrics owned by Margaret MacArthur, archived at the Vermont Folklife Center.

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