[251]
Ah me!
it was nae fau't oa mine;
It gars me greet to see thee pine.
It may be serves His great design
Who governs all;
Omniscience tents wia eyes divine
The Sparrow's fall!
How much like thine are human dools,
Their sweet wee bairns laid ia the mools?
The Sovereign Power who nature rules
Hath said so be it;
But poor blina mortals are sic fools
They canna see it.
Nae doubt that He who first did mate us
Has fixed our lot as sure as fate is,
Ana when He wounds He disna hate us,
But anely this,
He'll gar the ills which here await us
Yield lastina bliss.
In the early part of the eighteenth century a considerable number of Presbyterians of Scotch descent, from the north of
Ireland, emigrated to the New World.
In the spring of 1719, the inhabitants of
Haverhill, on the
Merrimac, saw them passing up the river in several canoes, one of which unfortunately upset in the rapids above the village.
The following fragment of a ballad celebrating this event has been handed down to the present time, and may serve to show the feelings even then of the old English settlers towards the Irish emigrants:—
They began to scream and bawl,
As out they tumbled one and all,
And, if the Devil had spread his net,
He could have made a glorious haul!
The new-comers proceeded up the river, and,
