ARAN'S LONELY HOME
If you that has your liberty
I pray you will draw near
A sad and dismal story
I mean to let you hear
While in a distant country
I languish sigh and moan
While I think of the days I spent
In Aran's lonely home
When I was young and in my prime
My age being twenty-one
I had become a servant
Unto a gentleman
I served him true an honest life
And very well 'tis known
But with cruelty he banished me
From Aran's lonely home
The reason why he banished me
I mean to let you know
'Tis true I loved his daughter
She loved me dear also
And she had got a fortune
Her riches I had known
And that is why he banished me
From Aran's lonely home
It was in her father's garden
All in the month of June
A-growing were those flowers
All in their youthful bloom
She said my dearest William
Along with me you may roam
And we'll bid adieu to all our friends
In Aran's lonely home
Unto my sad misfortune
Which proved my overthrow
That very night I gave consent
Along with her to go
The night being bright in moonlight
As we set out alone
A-thinking we might get away
From Aran's lonely home
But when we arrived at Belfast
Just at the break of day
My true love says she'll ready get
Our passage for to pay
Five thousand pounds she counted out
Saying this shall be your own
You will never fret for those you left
In Aran's lonely home
Unto my sad misfortune
Which you shall quickly hear
It was a few hours after
Her father did appear
He marched me away to Omas
In the County of Tyrone
It was there I got transported
From Aran's lonely home.
When I received my sentence
It grieved my heart full sore.
But the parting with my true love
It grieved me ten times more.
And when I think upon my chain
And every link a year
Before I can return again
To the arms of my dear.
From Songs the Whalemen Sang, Huntington
Collected from the journal of Catalpa, 1856.
