NOW welcome, welcome, baby-boy, unto a mother's fears, The pleasure of her sufferings, the rainbow of her tears, The object of your father's hope, in all the hopes to do, A future man of his own land, to live him o'er anew! How fondly on thy little brow a mother's eye would trace, And in thy little limbs, and in each feature of thy face, His beauty, worth, and manliness, and everything that's his, Except, my boy, the answering mark of where the fetter is! Oh! many a weary hundred years his sires that fetter wore, And he has worn it since the day that him his mother bore; And now, my son, it waits on you, the moment you are born, The old hereditary badge of suffering and scorn! Alas, my boy so beautiful! -- alas, my love so brave! And must your gallant Irish limbs still drag it to the grave? And you, my son, yet have a son, freedom'd a slave to be, Whose mother still must weep o'er him the tears I weep o'er thee! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TRANSPOSITIONS by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON IRELAND; WRITTEN FOR THE ART AUTOGRAPH DURING IRISH FAMINE by SIDNEY LANIER BRUTUS AND ANTONY by EDGAR LEE MASTERS DOMESDAY BOOK: ALMA BELL TO THE CORONER by EDGAR LEE MASTERS THE SPARROW HARK IN THE RAIN (ALEXANDER STEPHENS HEARS NEWS) by EDGAR LEE MASTERS |