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The autumn days are here again, and the night winds chilly blow,
The woodlands turn to golden hue, and the harvest moon's aglow;
To hear again of days long past to come no more I know,
When I mowed Pat Murphy's meadow in the sunny long ago.
I see again the ocean and the distant sails afar,
As the maiden in the meadow strikes up Dark Lough na Gar;
There was music soft and tender in the winds that whispered low,
When I mowed Pat Murphy's meadow in the sunny long ago.
Where are the happy boys and girls that danced the gay quadrill,
Or the singer who warbled sweetly The Burning Granite Mill?
To hear again at sunset Where Sweet Afton's Waters Flow,
When I mowed Pat Murphy's meadow in the sunny long ago.
Those days are but a memory, like the snows of yesteryear,
And, when evening shades are falling, all alone I shed a tear;
On my cheek I feel the soft touch of the winds that whispered low,
When I mowed Pat Murphy's meadow in the sunny long ago.
See more songs by the Devines.
Notes: Originally a poem written in the 1930s and rearranged by Anne Devine Pitcher, John M. Devine's granddaughter, Pat Murphy's Meadow is a field in King's Cove, Bonavista Bay, Newfoundland, where the author spent his childhood. The words were set to a tune composed by Peter McNulty in the 1950s. The Irish entertainer from Mullagh, County Clare, Patrick Joseph (P.J.) Murrihy, heard it at a party in Chicago in 1982, and had it published by Ceol Music in 1989.
