“The Irish Emigrant's Lament”
Description
"I never will forget the sorrows of that day," when the singer sailed from home. He knows he will miss the land, the friends, "the trusty heart [of the girl] I once could call my own." He will eat strangers' bread, and feel their scorn, and wish for home
Supplemental text
Irish Emigrant's Lament, The
Complete text(s)
*** A ***
From John Ord, Ord's Bothy Songs and Ballads, pp. 352-353.
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.
Notes
William Kennedy, a contemporary of William Motherwell, is reported by Ord to have been one of the Whistle-Binkie poets. For a composed song, even one composed a century before, it's amazing how much variation there is, in both text and tune, in the Henry and Ord versions (the former in G major, the latter listed as being in F major but apparently in D minor). - RBW
Cross references
- cf. "The Emigrant (I)" (subject)
References
- SHenry H235, p. 203, "The Shamrock Sod No More" (1 text, 1 tune)
- Ord, pp. 352-353, "The Irish Emigrant's Lament" (1 text, 1 tune)
- ST HHH235 (Full)
- Roud #2747
- BI, HHH235