When I was a lad of seventeen and as strong as any man
My father said, "Come on my son, you'll be working on the land.
He showed me how to work the plow and how to plant the corn,
But I dreamed of the days I'd take to the ways of the Rovin Journeyman.
Oh I'm the roving one, following the rivers following the sun.
A rainbow ends around the bend in the dreams of a Rovin Journeyman.
I worked for greedy farmers and I plowed their stony land.
With horses and with tractors, aye and some I dug by hand.
I dug their dirty byres in the faded light of dawn,
And I dreamed of the days I'd take to the ways of the Rovin Journeyman.
I fell in love with a gypsy girl. I slept in her caravan.
I fought at a fair in Castlebar with a red haired tinker man.
Ah the gypsy she says, You'll be changing your ways or from you I will soon be gone!"
I says, "Gypsy no more will I darken your door, I'll be gone with the rising sun
So I'll follow the streams and follow my dreams on a road that never ends.
And the rainbow I've been searching for, sure it's around some other bend.
Let the Wild Geese fly and the curlews cry and the red rooster crow at dawn.
There's no telling of me or where I may be, thats the ways of a journeyman.