A popular Irish song, undated (1864?)
From the opera “The Colleen Bawn”.
Words by Edmund Falconer.
The last song composed by Michael W. Balfe.
The sheet music:
Accompaniment by Benjamin R. Tubb:
Lyrics
- By Killarney’s lakes and fells
Em’rald isles and winding bays
Mountain paths and woodland dells
Mem’ry ever fondly strays
Bounteous nature loves all land
Beauty wanders ev’rywhere
Footprints leaves on many strands
But her home is surely there
Angels fold their wings and rest
In that Eden of the west
Beauty’s home Killarney
Ever fair Killarney - Innisfallen’s ruin’d shrine
May suggest a passing sigh
But man’s faith can ne’er decline
Such God’s wonders floating by
Castle Lough and Glena Bay
Mountains Tore and Eagle’s nest
Still at Mucross you must pray
Though the monks are now at rest
Angels wonder not that man
There would fain prolong life’s span
Beauty’s home Killarney
Ever fair Killarney - No place can charm the eye
With such bright and varied tints
Every rock that you pass by
Verdure broiders or besprints
Virgin there the green grass grows,
Every morn Spring’s natal day
Bright-hued berries daff the snows.
Smiling winter’s frown away
Angels often pausing there
Doubt if Eden were more fair
Beauty’s home Killarney
Ever fair Killarney - Music there for Echo dwells
Makes each sound a harmony
Many voic’d the chorus swells
Till it faints in ecstacy
With the charmful tints below
Seems the Heav’n above to vie
All rich colors that we know
Tinge the cloud wreaths in that sky
Wings of Angels so might shine
Glancing back soft light divine
Beauty’s home Killarney
Ever fair Killarney
Sung here by Fred Feild: