The famine poem

The famine poem

I left the ones I loved behind in Ireland and took to the road
The pain and sorrow in my heart was a heavy load
I was crying like a baby and I could not stop it
I had a ticket to America in my inside pocket
The blight had come to Ireland conditions there were cruel
Families were slowly starving with nothing to eat but gruel
I had to somehow or other make my way to Cobh in Cork
And catch the next departing coffin ship headed to New York

My father was a hardworking farmer intelligent and astute
Yet when the potato crop failed he was reduced to near destitute.
The farmer had to depend on food provided by his own tilling
The money was all saved up for rent there was no spare shilling
Working their fingers to the bone to pay off their monthly rent
To English landlords with illegal deeds living in London or Kent

While the tenants lived in falling down houses that were dilapidated

That once belonged to their forefathers but had been confiscated

I was to join up with father's sister who lived in Queens
A lonely world traveler not yet shaving in my middle teens
It was many a farmer's wife gave me butter milk and water
And let me sit beside the fire a while until I was hotter
Before I boarded the ship I knelt and kissed the quay
As I bid goodbye to the land I never more would see
When we sailed away there were some sick people on board
That we'd get there alive I silently prayed to the lord
Some died within a few weeks causing much sad emotion
They lie far away from Ireland in the Atlantic Ocean

I was offered a job unloading coal where I'd also be the groom
Since I'd be working seven days I could stay there in a room
They said if I stayed, in May we'd switch over to cutting grass
And every Sunday at ten O'clock I got an hour off for mass
Their parents came from Ireland too and they knew of our plight
They were just the greatest employers they treated me all right
The church was close, for my family in Ireland I often prayed
I cried to sleep the night of my first St Patrick's Day parade

 I was sending some dollars home for a ticket for my sister
I doubted the parents would ever make the trip and I missed her
Shortly after coming here she won a young rich mans heart
I was still in Brooklyn delivering coal by horse and cart
Her new family was farmers but she mourned her Irish loss
They hired me to run the farm they were making me the boss
But for many of my countrymen I silently had to cry
When I saw signs in windows saying "No Irish need apply"

Aunt Mary already a widow my sponsor I never will forget
She did not want to hear of it but I paid her back my debt
She gave birth to three but only one of her sons survived
The other two died very young shortly before I arrived
The son marched out with the 69th leaving a wife and child behind
Then came back from the civil war both lame and partly blind
But my aunt never complained since the day she left the old sod
With her husband and two children dead she put her trust in God
My sister's husbands family were not catholic yet truly saints
They took my cousin into their hearts despite his physical restraints

The letters coming from Ireland told of many a marriage and birth
And the untimely returning of old neighbors to the graveyard earth
I never threw away one of those messages of local news
My mother would put a funny twist on her stories so they'd amuse
But at the end of every letter there was one question without fail
If I was going to get married and have a grandchild who was male
For my brothers and sisters all had many daughters fair and fine
Before I finally married at forty between them they had nine

One Sunday after mass I met Sally Murphy just outside the Church
We had gone to school together that was the end of my search
We both were past our best dancing days but she was a lot of fun
A year after we married we surprised everybody with a son
I sent home dollars in the letter when it came they were elated
The neighbors were invited in and the whole night they celebrated
They were in their sixties now oh how those sad years we can't postpone
And it was more than twenty years now since I left them there alone

The next few years went quickly bye we were busy with our little man
My sister had a daughter whom she named after our mother Anne
The letter kept on arriving keeping me in touch with all at home
And the goings on around Clonmel and Clogheen far across the foam
But the saddest letter I ever got was penned by our parish priest
Telling me the sad new that our dear mother for weeks was deceased
My parent grew up together and they married in twenty seven
The day after my mother was buried Dad joined her in heaven

But still our life’s must go on and our son grew big and strong
We told him all the stories of our youth and taught dance and song
New emigrants told us of the struggles and the fight for Irish land
And the work being done by Davitt from Mayo who only had one hand
The situation for the poor small farmers was very little improved
From my days there in the famine when millions had died or moved
The smallest crime meant they could become a victim of transportation trade
And be shipped off to Australia in Tasmania or Adelaide

My seventieth year has come and the century came to an end
That was seven years ago when my son married his Tuam girl friend
A graduate of College and he wears the finest of lawyer's clothes
The three children he has with the Galway girl keeps us all on our toes
I've just returned from Carnegie Hall where I spent a conflicted day
I heard John McCormack singing a song about Tipperary so far away
I wonder what would have happened if I had not crossed the seas
Would I have died at home in Tipperary from hunger and disease?

 In the past few years my mobility has shown great reduction
I don't want to wind up moping around causing any obstruction
I have neither killed or hurt anybody I have a clean record
I've had more than my share of happiness I'm prepared to meet my lord