Books and other items printed in Gaelic from 1871 to 1900 > Gaelic bards, and original poems

FAREWELL OF THE EMIGRANT.
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For now the fancies and the place
Live both together in my mind ;
No spoils which time can e’er efface,
Because by love and thought combined.
FAREWELL OF THE EMIGRANT.
Farewell to the land where my childhood was pass’d,
And to the sweet scene these dim clouds o’ercast;
Farewell to its hills, and its dark rocky cave,
Whose shelter is music when loud tempests rave.
Thou fair green valley, sad parting to thee,
Oh! fill it, loud ocean, with wailing for me;
And, winds, the bare copses that meaningly greet,
Sad tone, ye wild singdrs, I ne’er shall forget.
For, fast-sweeping breezes, and thou rushing stream,
At this moment of parting, like old friends ye seem,
As now for the last time the sound’s in my ear
That mov’d my young soul to a rapture so dear.
Stoop down then, grey heaven—stoop down in thy gloom
And haste, coming tempest—haste over the tomb,
Where slumber my fathers and kinsmen, and sigh
As if mourning with me o’er the place where they lie.
Oh! land that my memory fills with delight,
On whose soil strode those fathers before me in might,
As I dream’d in my youth on thy green swelling breast
That wraps their cold dust in its mantle of rest.
Farewell now to all that embraces thy shore,
Dear land of my race that I ne’er shall see more;
Lands richer there may be before me than thine.
But no other country can ever be mine.