POETRY.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1971, 18 June 1880, Page 3

POETRY.

GIYE MB THREE GRAINS OF CORN MOTHER.

[This powerful and pathetic piece was suggested by many of the painful incidents of the memorable Irish famine of 1846. The title was the last request of an Irish lad to his mother, as ho was dying of starvation. She found three grains of corn in a corner of his ragged jacket. It was all she had. The whole family were perishing from famine.^

Give me three grains of corn, mother, Only three grains of corn ; It will keep the little life I have Till the coming of the morn. I am dying of hunger and cold, mother. Dying of hunger and cold. And half the agony of such a death My lips have never told. I am gnawed like a wolf at my heart, mother, A wolf that is fierce for blood— All the live long day, and the night beside, Gnawing for lack of food. I dreamt of broad in ray sleep, mother, And the sight was heaven to see— I awoke with an eager, famishing lip, Bat you had no bread for mo. How could I look to you, mother, How could I look to you, For bread to give your starring boy, When you were starving too ? For I read the famine In your cheek, And in your eye so wild, And I felt it in your bony hand, As you laid it on your child. The Q.ueen has lands and gold, mother, The Queon has lands and gold, While you are forced to your empty breast A skeleton babe to hold. A babe that is dying of want, mother, As I am dying now, With a ghastly look in its sunken eye. And famine upon its brow. What has poor Ireland done mother, What has poor Ireland done, That the world looks on and sees us starve. Perishing one by one. Do the men of England care not, mother, The groat men and the high, For the suffering sons of Erin’s Isle, Whether they live or die ? There is many a brave heart here, mother, Dying of want and cold, While only across the channel, mother, Are many that roll in gold. There are rich and proud men there, mother, With wonderous wealth in view. And the bread they fling to their dogs tonight Would give life to ME and you.

Como nearer to my side, mother, Come nearer to my side, And hold mo fondly, as you held My father when he died. Quick, for I cannot see you, mother, My breath is almost gone ; Mother ! dear mother! ere I die Give me three grains of corn.