[From Mona's Isle, 1844]

THE MANXMAN’S FAREWELL.

A Mannanagh dooie—from the clen I was trogit,¹
Close by the foot of the bridge of Cornay,
Whose keystone was fix’d in the year I was rugit,²
Three miles and a half from the town of Ramsey:
In this rural spot, at the foot of the mountain,
I pass’d the gay morn of my life’s chequer’d day,
Alike when December in ice bound each fountain,
Or flowers sprung forth at the mild breath of May.

To me seem’d my cot and the green fields around it
The whole of vast Nature’s dominion below,
Tho’ oft the blue ether that archingly bound it
Caused many conjectures its nature to know;
In a circle of joy each moment pass’d daily,
As freely I roved the green meadows or Carn,³
And sang in my own native language so gaily,
The " Keery fo-naughty," or " Molacarane."⁴

But, ah ! cruel Fate in her freak had design’d me
To traverse the regions of old mother earth,
And leave my dear Mannin with sorrow behind me,
The home of my fathers—the land of my birth!
Full well I remember that day yet with sorrow,
When first from my own Mannin veen I did stray,
And when I beheld her high cliffs on the morrow
Fast sinking below the blue waves far away,

I thought on my parents who fondly caress’d me,
And soothed all my sorrows in childhood’s fond years,

And love unrequited, that pang which distress’d me
And forced me away from my island in tears:
What language can picture my heartfelt emotion,
As flew the gay barque o’er the white-foaming swell,
When I sigh’d to the breeze in my silent devotion—
" My Mannin, my own Mannin veen, fare-thee well !"

Footnotes

1 A true Manxman bred from the cradle.
2 Born.
3 The name of a field.
4 Two popular songs in the Manx language.