[from Manx Quarterly, #24, Jan 1921]

A PLACE TO REMEMBER.
SENTIMENTS OF A SENTIMENTAL VISITOR.

By George Quarrie, New York.

OH, a place to remember and never forget,
A land of delight to explore,
Just a spot that one cannot but leave with regret
And long to return to its shore.
Dearest Mona, if only kind fate bade me stay
And never again to depart,
It would spare me the sadness of sailing away
Once more with a half-broken heart.

Chorus

Oh a place to remember, a land to adore,
Thou gem in a bright azure sea;

To remember, ah vex, and to bless evermore,
O Mona, sweet Mannin machree!
Oh, a place to remember, where fairies delight
To plague w ith their pranks now and then,
And as out from Glentrammon they still troop at night,
They terrorise cowardly men.
Ali, to think of those nights in the Glewn Nee-a-nee,
When holding their harvest moon dance !
'Tis a sight that few mortals are given to see,
And then only see it by chance.-Chorus.

Oh, if once to the sealark's soft, welcoming trebles
And the garybrecks' chattering glee
You have strolled down those beaches of glittering pebbles
And have dipped in that glorious sea,
You'll admit that no joy to humanity given,
Or any that may be denied,
Could ever approach quite so nearly to heaven
As plunging in Mona's sweet tide.-Chorus.

Oh, as long as your fields have those fragrant old hedges
Of briar and gorse-woven sods,
And your meadows still sweetened by sallies and sedges,
All breathing a nectar for gods,
And as long as Barrule has its mantle of ling,
And Sulby winds down to the sea,
And the clouds round the brow of old Snaefell still cling,
Thou'rt ever sweet Mona to me !

Chorus

Oh a place to remernber, a land to adore,
Thou gem in a bright azure sea',
To remember, ah yes, and to bless evermore,
O Mona, sweet Mannin machree !