[from Collected Works, T.E.Brown]

FO’C’S’LE YARNS

FIRST SERIES

DEDICATION

To sing a song shall please my countrymen;
To unlock the treasures of the Island heart;
With loving feet to trace each hill and glen,
And find the ore that is not for the mart
Of commerce : this is all I ask.
No task,
But joy, GOD wot!
Wherewith " the stranger " intermeddles not—

Who, if perchance
He lend his ear,
As caught by mere romance
Of nature, traversing
On viewless wing
All parallels of sect
And race and dialect,
Then shall he be to me most dear.

Natheless, for mine own people do I sing,
And use the old familiar speech:
Happy if I shall reach
Their inmost consciousness.
One thing
They will confess
I never did them wrong,
And so accept the singer and the song.

1881.