A little book of tribune verse :: :: University of Virginia Library

I was as proud a man and brave
As ever sailed the sea,
For I was born upon the wave
And it was home to me,
Till Jennie came and promise gave
My faithful, bonnie bride to be.

Then were we wed and ere a year
Like one sweet dream had sped,
A tiny angel doubly dear,
A hallowed joylight shed
Around our hearthstone far and near,
Our precious little golden head.

Oh those were happy times to me,
When, floating with the tide
Back to the shore, I used to see
Each night my bonnie bride
And little baby in her glee
A playin' at her mother's side.

Aye, forty years! an' here am I
A lowly fisher still.
I've drank the cup of misery
Up to the very fill.
And they, they in the churchyard lie,
Up yonder on the hill.

132

But oh! perhaps when I shall sail
That last cold ocean wide,
Mine eyes shall see, though fierce the gale,
My bonnie blue-eyed bride
Stand on the shore in yonder Leal,
With baby playin' at her side.

November 26th, 1882.