I have travelled many lands and I still don’t understand
how sad you have become on my return.
Your old heart is filled with care, sad and old they left you there,
your once wiped eyes with sorrow, softly burn.
 
[Chorus 1]
I can even sense the change in the sound of children’s games
and the dreams of youths' ambitions have all turned to death and fear.
It’s an age of wealth I’m told, but I’ve never felt so old,
as I recall old Dublin in my tears.
 
[Verse 2]
All the faces that I meet as I roam each one way street
reflect the empty statements of the times.
And the old cathedral bell can’t be heard above the swell
for the years erase the message in her chimes.
 
[Chorus 2]
All my childhood friends are gone, like the street where we were born,
and the time that it has taken doesn’t seem so many years.
They have faded in the gloom with ‘Sap' Kelly of the Crew,
just a ghost of dear old Dublin in my tears.
 
[Verse 3]
There were times when jobs were few, there were hungry days we knew,
some days so bad their memory I’ve cursed.
And the prayer I said to God, there onboard the 'Princess Maud'
that our children would restore a pride we lost.
 
[Chorus 3]
But their past they all forsake, as they're dancing at her wake,
while the heart of Dublin’s dying, nobody really cares.
And the fools, as they pass by, laugh to see an old man cry,
oh, I can’t forget old Dublin in my tears.
 
[Verse 4]
Gather round brave men and true, though our numbers they be few,
we’ll drink one toast before I cross the foam.
For soon in London’s dark domain, I’ll recall how I became,
no more a stranger there than here at home.
 
Now the Liffey flows along and I listen to her song
'till the voice of young James Larkin seems to echo in my ears.
But it's just the rafters ring, to it’s requiem I sing,
farewell to dear old Dublin in my tears.
Farewell to dear old Dublin in my tears.