Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


AN ISLAND FISHERMAN by KATHARINE TYNAN

First Line: I GROAN AS I PUT OUT
Last Line: WHY DO THE CHILDER GROW AT ALL TO LOVE THE STRANGER BEST?

I groan as I put out my nets upon the say,
To hear the little girshas shout, a-dance among the spray,
Ochone! the childer pass away, and lave us to our grief;
The stranger took my little lass at falling of the leaf.

Why would you go so fast with him you never knew?
In all the throuble that is past I never frowned on you,
The light of my old eyes you are, the comfort o' my heart!
Waitin' for me your mother lies in blessed Innishart.

Her lonesome grave I keep from all the cold world wide,
But you in life an' death will sleep the stranger still beside.
Ochone! my thoughts are dark and wild; but little blame, I say,
An ould man hungerin' for his child, a-work the livelong day.

You will not run again laughin' to see me land;
Oh, what was pain and throuble then, holdin' your little hand?
Or when your darlin' head let fall its soft curls on my breast,
Why do the childer grow at all to love the stranger best?



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