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Come all you sons of Paddy's land and listen onto me |
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Till I relate of the hardships great a crossing over the sea |
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For the want of bread ten thousands fled so far across the foam |
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And left the land where they were born called Erin's lovely home. |
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Black forty seven I'll never forget when the fever it stalked the land |
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And the famine without mercy it stretched forth it's dreadful hand |
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There's many the child in cold death lay their parents they did mourn |
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While the landlord's agents pulled down our roofs in Erin's lovely home. |
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My father, was a farming man reared to industry |
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He had two sons, they were men strong, and lovely daughters three |
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Our farm was too small to feed us all so some of us had to roam |
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With sisters two I bid adieu to Erin's lovely home |
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My father sold the second cow and he borrowed twenty pounds |
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And in the merry month of May we sailed from Sligo town |
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There were thousands more left upon the shore all anxious for to roam |
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And leave the land where they were born called Erin's lovely home |
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We were scarcely seven days at sea when the fever it plagued our crew |
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They were falling like the autumn leaves bidding friends and life adieu |
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Now the raging waves sweep o'er their graves, amidst the ocean foam |
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Our friends may mourn for we'll never return to Erin's lovely home |
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My loving sisters they both took ill and their lives they were taken away |
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And oh it grieved my heart full sore for to cast them in the sea |
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Down in the deep now they do sleep they never more will roam |
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But in heaven I'll meet with my sisters sweet from Erin's lovely home |
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Now I'm in the land of liberty where plenty it does abound |
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Where the labouring man gets full reward for the tilling of his ground |
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There's naught I can see that can comfort me as an exile I must roam |
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And end my days far far away from Erin's lovely home |