The poems and stories of Fitz-James O'Brien

My boy left me just twelve years ago:
'T was the black year of famine, of sickness and woe,
When the crops died out, and the people died too,
And the land into one great grave-yard grew;
And our neighbors' faces were as white and thin
As the face of the moon when she first comes in;
And honest men's hearts were rotten with blight,
And they thieved and prowled like the wolves at night;
When the whole land was dark as dark could be,—
'T was then that Donal, my boy, left me.

We were turned from our farm where we 'd lived so long,
For we could n't pay the rent, and the law was strong;
From our low meadow lands, and flax fields blue,
And the handsome green hill where the yellow furze grew,
And the honest old cow that, each evening, would stand
At the little gate, lowing to be milked by my hand;
And the small patch of garden at the end of the lawn,
Where Donal grew sweet flowers for his Colleen Bawn;
But Donal and I had to leave all these,—
I to live with father, and he to cross the seas.

For Donal was as proud as any king's son,
And swore he 'd not stand by and see such wrongs done,
But would seek a fortune out in the wide, wide West,
Where the honest can find labor and the weary rest;
And as soon as he was able why then he 'd send for me
To rest my poor old head in his home across the sea:
And then his young face flushed like a June sky at dawn,

As he said that he was thinking how his Colleen Bawn
Could come along to help me to keep the house straight,
For he knew how much she loved him, and she 'd promised him to wait.

I think I see him now, as he stood one blessed day,
With his pale smiling face upon the Limerick quay,
And I lying on his breast, with his long, curly hair
Blowing all about my shoulders as if to keep me there;
And the quivering of his lip, that he tried to keep so proud,—
Not because of his old mother, but the idle, curious crowd,—
Then the hoisting of the anchor, and the flapping of the sail,
And the stopping of my heart when the wild, Irish wail
From the mothers, and the children, and the kinsfolk on the quay
Told me plainer than all words that my darling was away.

Ten years went dragging by, and I heard but now and then,—
For my Donal, though a brave boy, was no scholar with the pen;
But he sent me kindly words, and bade me not despair,
And sometimes sent me money, perhaps more than he could spare;
So I waited and I prayed until it came to pass
That Father Pat he wanted me one Sunday after mass,
When I went, a little fearsome, to the back vestry-room,
Where his reverence sat a-smiling like a sunflower in the gloom:
And then he up and told me—God bless him!—that my boy
Had sent to bring me over, and I nearly died for joy.

All day I was half-crazed as I wandered through the house;
The dropping of the sycamore seeds, or the scramble of a mouse,
Thrilled through me like a gun-shot; I durst not look behind,
For the pale face of my darling was always in my mind.
The pale face so sorrowful, the eyes so large and dark,
And soft shining as the deer's are in young Lord Massy's park;
And the long chestnut hair blown loosely by the wind,—
All this seemed at my shoulder, and I dared not look behind,
But I said in my own heart, it is but the second sight
Of the day when I shall kiss him, all beautiful and bright.

Then I made my box ready to go across the sea,
My boy had sent a ticket, so my passage it was free;
But all the time I longed that some little gift I had
To take across the ocean to my own dear lad;
A pin, or a chain, or something of the kind,
Just to 'mind the poor boy of the land he 'd left behind.
But I was too poor to buy it, so I 'd nothing left to do
But to go to the old farm, the homestead that he knew;
To the handsome green hill where my Donal used to play,
And cut a sod of shamrock for the exile far away.

All through the voyage I nursed it, and watered it each day,
And kept its green leaves sheltered from the salt-sea spray,
And I 'd bring it upon deck when the sun was shining fair,
To watch its triple leaflets opening slowly in the air.

At first the sailors laughed at my little sod of grass,
But when they knew my object they gently let me pass;
And the ladies in the cabin were very kind to me;
They made me tell the story of my boy across the sea:
So I told them of my Donal, and his fair, manly face,
Till bare speaking of my darling made a sunshine in the place.

We landed at the Battery in New York's big bay,
The sun was shining grandly, and the wharves looked gay.
But I could see no sunshine nor beauty in the place,
What I only cared to look on was Donal's sweet face;
But in all the great crowd, and I turned everywhere,
I could not see a sign of him,—my darling was not there;
I asked the men around me to go and find my son,
But they only stared or laughed, and left me, one by one,
Till at last an old countryman came up to me and said—
How could I live to hear it?—that Donal was dead!

The shamrock sod is growing on Greenwood's hill-side.
It grows above the heart of my darling and my pride;
And on summer days I sit by the headstone all day,
With my heart growing old and my head growing gray;
And I watch the dead leaves whirl from the sycamore-trees,
And wonder why it is that I can't die like these;
But I think that this same winter, and from my heart I hope,
I'll be lying nice and quiet upon Greenwood's slope,
With my darling close beside me underneath the trickling dew,
And the shamrocks creeping pleasantly above us two.

University of Virginia Library

THE BALLAD OF THE SHAMROCK.