(Original.)
To The Departing Emigrants.

TRUE hearts beat high when friends depart from friends,
And Time tells a tale of mutual loss;
While boding fancy with the future blends
Strange perils on the seas which you must cross;
But dangers will not – distance must not daunt
The hopeful spirit of the Emigrant.
Farewell! sweet friends, a long adieu! and yet,
While still the boundling wave and buoyant wind
Are bearing you far from us, ever let
Our souls be linkt – our heart of hearts entwined!
For, far or near, wherever you may be,
Your good or evil fate is life or death to me.
May that good land which lies beyond the sea,
In truth a Land of Promise prove to you,
Where want is never known, but where the free
And fruitful soil to labor lends a new
And nobler life, increasing evermore
In moral health and wealth as well as worldly store.
Though many weeping ones, alas! are left
In this dear own old land of wealth and woe,
‘Tis blissful sorrow to be so bereft,
When those we love to happier regions go.
The mother’s heart, whose babe’s beneath the sod,
Is healed to think “my child’s in heaven with God.”
WILLIAM BILLINGTON. Green-bank, Blackburn, June 29th.

Title:To the Departing Emigrants

Author:William Billington

Publication:The Blackburn Times

Published in:Blackburn

Date:July 04, 1863

Keywords:emigration, poverty, religion, song