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The sun's setting beams on the sea were reflecting,
As gracefully glided our ship with the breeze;
On the deck stood a youth, silent, pale, and dejected,
Oh, why was that young heart so thoughtful and grieved?
As he stood there alone, his lonely watch keeping,
The breeze on his broad brow the dark curls were sweeping;
And ever through his own silent watch he was weeping,
Saying, "Farewell, my beloved land; I'll see thee no more.
"Farewell, ye green fields where in boyhood I wandered,
Ye fields where my young feet with gladness did press;
Adieu, ye old haunts where ofttimes I have pondered
O'er wrongs that my young heart have bled to redress.
Oh, land of my father, my soul grieves to leave thee,
Oh, land from the tyrant I've struggled to free thee;
Prescribed as an exile, no more I will see thee,
My own beloved land I will see thee no more."
Darker and deeper eve's shadows fell around him,
And distant and dim grew the shores from his view;
But still to the deck there was something that bound him,
It was then that he murmured his lone sad adieu.
The solemn night fell like a pall on the ocean,
Closed o'er the isle of his young heart's devotion;
And there, amid the wild swelling waves of emotion
He murmured, "Beloved land, I'll see thee no more!"
Collected in 1952 from Phillip Foley of Tilting, NL, by Kenneth Peacock and published in Songs Of The Newfoundland Outports, Volume 2, pp.352-353, by the National Museum of Canada (1965) Crown Copyrights Reserved.
