 sj |
||
|
||
| ||||||
|
Share
THE IRISH EMIGRANT's LAMENT Och! while I live I'll never forget The troubles of that day, When bound into a foreign land Our ship got under way. My friends I left at Belfast town, My love at Carrick shore, And I gave to poor old Ireland My blessing o'er and o'er. Och! well I knew as off we sailed, What my hard fate would be; For, gazing on my country's hills They seemed to fly from me. I watched them as we sailed away Until my eyes grew sore, And I felt that I was doomed to walk The Shamrock sod no more. They say I'm now in freedom's land, Where all men masters be; But were I in my winding-sheet There's none to care for me. I must, to eat the strangers bread, Abide the stranger's scorn, Who taunts me with thy dear loved name Sweet isle, where I was born. Och! where -- och! where's the careless heart I once could call my own? It bade a long farewell to me The day I left Tyrone. Not all the wealth by hardship won Beyond the Western main, Thy pleasures, my own absent home, Can bring to me again. From John Ord, Ord's Bothy Songs and Ballads, pp. 352-353. @emigrant @Irish @nostalgia filename[ IRSHEMIG Feb07 |
|
