I wished I had you in Carrickfergus,
Only for nights in Ballygrand,
I would swim over the deepest ocean,
The deepest ocean to be by your side.

But the sea is wide and I can't swim over
And neither have I wings to fly.
I wish I could find me a handy boatman
To ferry me over to my love and die.

My childhood days bring back sad reflections
Of happy days so long ago.

Chorus:
Step we gaily on we go,
Heel and heel
And toe for toe,
Arm and arm
And row and row,
All for Marie's wedding.

Over hillways, up and down,
Myrtle green and bracken brown,
Past the sheilings through the town
All for the sake of Marie.

Chorus

Red her cheeks as Rowan's are,
Bright her eyes as any star.
Fairest of them all by far,
Is our darlin' Marie.

Chorus

Where Lagan streams sing lullabies
There blows a lily fair.
The twilight gleam is in her eye,
The night is on her hair.
And like a lovesick lenashee
She hath my heart in thrall.
No life have I, no liberty,
For love is Lord of all.

And often when the beetles horn
Has lulled the eve to sleep,
I'll steal into her sheiling lorn
And through the doorway creep.
There on the cricket's singing stone,

On Raglan Road on an Autumn Day,
I saw her first and knew
That her dark hair would weave a snare
That I may one day rue.
I saw the danger, yet I walked
Along the enchanted way
And I said let grief be a falling leaf
At the dawning of the day.

On Grafton Street in November,
We tripped lightly along the ledge
Of a deep ravine where can be seen
The worst of passions pledged.

My young love said to me,
My mother won't mind
And my father won't slight you
For your lack of kind.
She stepped away from me
And this she did say,
"It will not be long love
Till our wedding day".

She stepped away from me
And she moved through the fair
And fondly I watched her move here
And move there.
And she went her way homeward
With one star awake,
As the swan in the evening

Near Banridge town in the county down one morning last July
From a Booring green came a sweet Colleen,
She smiled as she passed me by
She looked so sweet, from her two bare feet to the shine of he nut brown hair
Such a coaxing little elf, sure I shook myself for to see if I was really there

Chours:
From Bantry Bay on the Derry Quay
From Gollway to Dublin town