This song request is so old that it is not even mentioned among the missing lyrics. Alison once has transcribed this song for me. Praise her for the transcription and blame me for overlooking the errors my scanner has made. I still don't know anything more about this song.

Wolfgang

HEDGES OF COUNTY DOWN

A boy had a dream that a man was he
A dream of a far distant place
He turned away from his family
To the world turned an innocent face.
Light of pocket but heavy of heart
He started from Newry town
Sad of heart but he had to part
From the hedges of County Down.

He started his journey along that road
And let out a sigh of pain
For the Mourne Mountains and all around
He never might see again
He pulled a willow from under the hedge
The spring it lay green on the sod
He started away on this ramble new
With his fate in the hands of God.

This boy who parted from Newry town
Was out in the world of men
Seeking his fortune on the far foreign shore
To take him back home again
And when the hair on his head grew white
And his footsteps grew feeble and slow
He said "By the morning I will start
To the land of my childhood I'll go."

And so he started back again
How his heart it did leap with joy
To see those dark Mourne Mountains again
And the places he roamed as a boy
This boy who toiled to the door of his tomb
In many a far distant town
He died when the hawthorn trees were in bloom
In the hedges of County Down