The Irish Emigrant. 1883.

"They sow in tears who reap in joy,"
Was truly said of old:
We wandered far, but round us still
Stretched God Almighty's fold.

'Twas He who led us forth; our grief
Discerned His chastening hand,
And saw not, though before our eyes
Shone bright His promised land.

O bless Him for the love that made
The parting greeting sore,
But for the bold heart that He gave
We bless our God yet more!

He gave us hope, He gave us strength;
For us His prairies smile,
The new world's untouched soils for us
Spread boundless, mile on mile.

The richest heritage on earth
For us His mercy saved;
For ages Nature's harvests here
Unknown, ungathered, waved.

Ours now the grain which decks the plains,
Ours all their wondrous yield;
Our children, and our kin possess
Their own, in house and field.

What wonder then if many laugh,
And wonder joy was dumb!
To friends in older lands with less
Our happy hearts say "Come."

John Campbell

No biography available

John Campbell

The Hard Strait Of The Feinne

John Campbell, Simple Poetry

Tobermory Bay. 1588.

John Campbell, Simple Poetry

On The New Province "Alberta."

John Campbell, Simple Poetry

English

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The Irish Emigrant. 1880.

Look not for me at eventide,
I cannot come when work is done;
I go to wander far and wide,
For 'tis not here that gold is won.
Perchance where'er I go, these hands
May find me what I need to live;
Whate'er they win, if house, or lands,
I'd yield for what they cannot give.

For who can turn away his face
From home and kin and be at rest?
What country e'er can take the place
That Ireland fills within my breast?
More kindly smile the distant skies,
They say, beyond yon angry sea;
I know not what they mean, mine eyes
Have never seen these frown on me.

To me these hills beside the wave
With every year have dearer grown;
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A Protestant Irishman To His Wife.

"Just forty years to-day, my dear,
We sail'd from Irish waters,
And bade farewell, with many a tear,
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The Emigrant's Address To America.

All hail to thee, noble and generous Land!
    With thy prairies boundless and wide,
Thy mountains that tower like sentinels grand,
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A Sorrowful Lament For Ireland

The Irish poem I give this translation of was printed in the Revue Celtique some years ago, and lately in An Fior Clairseach na h-Eireann, where a note tells us it was taken from a manuscript in the Gottingen Library, and was written by an Irish priest, Shemus Cartan, who had taken orders in France; but its date is not given. I like it for its own beauty, and because its writer does not, as so many Irish writers have done, attribute the many griefs of Ireland only to 'the horsemen of the Gall,' but also to the faults and shortcomings to which the people of a country broken up by conquest are perhaps more liable than the people of a country that has kept its own settled rule.


A SORROWFUL LAMENT FOR IRELAND.

My thoughts, alas! are without strength;
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Seed-Time And Harvest

As o'er his furrowed fields which lie
Beneath a coldly dropping sky,
Yet chill with winter's melted snow,
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Thus, Freedom, on the bitter blast
The ventures of thy seed we cast,
And trust to warmer sun and rain
To swell the germs and fill the grain.
Who calls thy glorious service hard?
Who deems it not its own reward?
Who, for its trials, counts it less
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It may not be our lot to wield
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Nor ours to hear, on summer eves,
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A Poem Written In Time Of Trouble By An Irish Priest Who Had Taken Orders In France

My thoughts, my grief! are without strength
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And my thoughts are sharp wounds within me,
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Misfortune has come upon us all together
The poor, the rich, the weak and the strong
The great lord by whom hundreds were maintained
The powerful strong man, and the man that holds the plough;
And the cross laid on the bare shoulder of every man.

Our feasts are without any voice of priests
And none at them but women lamenting
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Keening miserably after the Fenians.

The pipes of our organs are broken
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