OH ! Lady, listen to my tale,
‘Twill drive the roses from thy cheek;
“Let soft humanity prevail,
“And hear the hapless wanderer speak.
“Think not the sorrow that I mourn,
“O fairest Lady, void of truth;
“For long I’ve trod life’s mazy thorn,
“A poor, unhappy, friendless youth.
” ‘Tis not for me alone I crave,
“From door to door, with many a tear,
“While hung’ring I rejoice to save
“My gleanings for a Mother dear.
“Though happy once in rural cot,
“With smiling health and plenty blest,
“Fate envied all our peaceful lot,
“And drove us from the shelt’ring nest.
“My Sister, beautiful and mild,
“Soon sunk beneath her sorrow’s weight,
“And left me here a wandering child,
“To mourn her miserable fate!
“A press-gang rude my Father tore
“With brutal violence away;
“While at his unsuspicious door,
“He ply’d the busy toilsome day.
“Ah! never since that fatal hour
“Have these dim eye-lids beam’d with joy,
“Or chas’d the dismal clouds that low’r
“Around the wandering beggar boy.”
A sailor heard the tale he told,
While all around his fate deplore,
When lo! his eager arms enfold
The boy, now fatherless no more!
“Where is thy Mother, boy?” he cries,
“I am thy Father, stay the tear;
“Tho’ travelling long ‘neath hated skies,
“Has planted deep the furrows here.
“My days of sorrow now are o’er,
“Oh haste, and glad thy Mother’s heart!
“For fate, till death, shall never more
“Thy Father from thy Mother part.”
(Emma Lyon)
More Poetry from Emma Lyon:
Emma Lyon Poems based on Topics: Sadness, Joy & Excitement, Happiness, Death & Dying, Youth, Cry, Sisters, Beauty, Truth, Fate & Destiny, Speaking- Paraphrases From David's Psalms (Emma Lyon Poems)
- An Ode On Hope (Emma Lyon Poems)
- Lines To D. F*****, Esq. Barrister (Emma Lyon Poems)
- Stanzas To The Moon (Emma Lyon Poems)
- Lines: Written to my Sister during her Passage to the West Indies (Emma Lyon Poems)
- Conclusion (Emma Lyon Poems)
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Based on Topics: Sadness Poems, Death & Dying Poems, Joy & Excitement Poems, Youth Poems, Cry Poems, Beauty Poems, Happiness Poems, Fate & Destiny Poems, Truth Poems, Mothers Poems, Fathers PoemsBased on Keywords: gleanings, eye-lids, shelt, chas, unsuspicious, press-gang
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