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Home  »  The Oxford Book of English Verse  »  858. My Grief on the Sea FROM THE IRISH

Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.

Douglas Hyde. b. 1861

858. My Grief on the Sea FROM THE IRISH

MY grief on the sea, 
  How the waves of it roll! 
For they heave between me 
  And the love of my soul! 
 
Abandon’d, forsaken,         5
  To grief and to care, 
Will the sea ever waken 
  Relief from despair? 
 
My grief and my trouble! 
  Would he and I were,  10
In the province of Leinster, 
  Or County of Clare! 
 
Were I and my darling— 
  O heart-bitter wound!— 
On board of the ship  15
  For America bound. 
 
On a green bed of rushes 
  All last night I lay, 
And I flung it abroad 
  With the heat of the day.  20
 
And my Love came behind me, 
  He came from the South; 
His breast to my bosom, 
  His mouth to my mouth.