Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Ireland: Vol. V. 1876–79.

Miscellaneous

Irish Boatman’s Hymn

By From the Irish

BARK that bear me through foam and squall,

You in the storm are my castle wall:

Though the sea should redden from bottom to top,

From tiller to mast she takes no drop;

On the tide-top, the tide-top,

Wherry aroon, my land and store!

On the tide-top, the tide-top,

She is the boat can sail go leor.

She dresses herself, and goes gliding on,

Like a dame in her robes of the Indian lawn;

For God has blessed her, gunnel and wale,

And O, if you saw her stretch out to the gale,

On the tide-top, on the tide-top, etc.

Whillan, ahoy! old heart of stone,

Stooping so black o’er the beach alone,

Answer me well,—on the bursting brine

Saw you ever a bark like mine?

On the tide-top, the tide-top, etc.

Says Whillan, “Since first I was made of stone,

I have looked abroad o’er the beach alone,

But till to-day, on the bursting brine,

Saw I never a bark like thine,”

On the tide-top, on the tide-top, etc.

“God of the air!” the seamen shout,

When they see us tossing the brine about:

“Give us the shelter of strand or rock,

Or through and through us she goes with a shock!”

On the tide-top, the tide-top,

Wherry aroon, my land and store,

On the tide-top, the tide-top,

She is the boat can sail go leor!