I found this song mentioned in The Traditional Ballad Index. Apparently, it has not been posed at Mudcat before.

Park Benjamin, ed., The New World: A Weekly Family Journal of Popular Literature, Science, Art and News, Vol. 6, No. 9 (New York: J. Winchester, Saturday, March 11, 1843), page 291:


LINES FROM ABROAD.
BY W. F. S. OF THE UNITED STATES NAVY.

[1] I’ve wandered many a league—Mary,
Since last with you I met,
And many more about the world,
’Tis will’d I wander yet.
Yet though I’m borne from clime, to clime,
Where all seems strange and new,
My thoughts steal back to “Old Lang Syne,”
To absent friends and you—Mary!
To absent friends and you.

[2] Another year since last we met,
Old Time has sped along,
Another term of hope, regret—
Of gleefulness and song:
Old Forty-one has passed away,
But yet in forty-two
My truant thoughts will backward stray
To absent friends and you, Mary!
To absent friends and you.

[3] Though change of scene in foreign land
Seems pleasant for a while,
The pressure of the stranger* hand
And welcome, may beguile:
Yet give me back my native home,
With all that’s prized and true,
And I would wish no more to roam,
From absent friends and you, Mary!
From absent friends and you.

[4] And now, my gentle friend, good bye!
Calm blessings light your way,
Life’s moments pass without a sigh,
Hope never know decay:
And sometimes while in joyousness,
The past flits by your view,
Remember one who often thinks
Of absent friends and you, Mary!
Of absent friends and you.

- - -
* I believe this should be "stranger's". See below.