Classic Poem

He is gone to the wars, and has left me alone,
The poor Irish soldier, unfriended, unknown,
My husband, my Patrick,
The bird of my bosom, — though now he is flown!

How I mourned for the boy! yet I murmured the more,
'Cause we once were so happy in darlin' Lismore,
Poor Ellen and Patrick;
Perhaps he now thinks of poor Ellen no more!

A cabin we had, and the cow was hard by,
And a slip of a garden that gladden'd the eye:
And there was our Patrick;
Ne'er idle whilst light ever lived in the sky.

We married, — too young, and it's likely too poor,
Yet no two were so happy in happy Lismore,
As Ellen and Patrick;
Till they tempted and took him away from our door.

He said he would bring me, ere Autumn should fall,
A linnet or lark that should come at my call.
Alas! the poor Patrick!
He has left me a bird that is sweeter than all.

Twas born in a hovel, 'twas nourished in pain,
But it came in my grief, like a light on the brain,
(The child of poor Patrick,)
And taught me to hope for bright fortune again.
And now, — We two wander from door unto door,
And, sometimes, we steal back to happy Lismore,
And ask for poor Patrick;
And dream of the days when the wars will be o'er!