Select Poetry.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3594, 3 July 1880, Page 1

Select Poetry.

GIVE ME THREE GRAINS OF COEN, MOTHER.

[This powerful and pathetic pieoe was sug> gested by many of the painful incidents of the memorable Irish Famine of 1846. The title was the last request of an Irish lad to bis mother, as he was dying of starvation. She found three grains of corn in • corner of hie ragged jacket. It was all she had. The whole family were perishing from famine.]

Giro me three grains of corn mother, Only three grains of corn;. It will keep the little life I bare ' 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 ia fierce for bloodAll the lire long day, and the nigbt betide, Gnawing for lack of food. I dreamt, of bread in my sleep, mother, And the Bight was heaven to see— I awoke with an eager, famishing lip, But you had no bread for me.

How could I look to you, mother, How could I look to you, For/bread to give your starving 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 yeur bony, hand, As you laid it on your child.

The Queen has lands and gold, mother, * The Quteen has lands and gold, While you are forced to your empty breast A skeleton babe to hold. A babe that ie 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 pror Ireland done, That the world looks on and sees us starve,, Perishing one by one. "...' , Do the men of England care not, mother, The great men and the high. - For. the suffering sons of Erin's Isle, Whether they live or die.

These is many a brave heart here, mother, Djing of want and oold, While only across the channel, mother, Are many that roll in gold. There are rich and proud men there, mother, With wondrous wealth in ?iew, And the bread they fling to their doge to* night > Would give life to MB and top. Come nearer to my tide, mother, Come nearer to my tide, ' *" - . And hold me fondly, ac you held . My father when he died. Quick, for I ciknnot tee you, mother, ■ ■^-<*»-, My breath is almost gone; Mother! denr mother ere I dio ' Give me three grains of corn. ' '