"The Orphan Ballad Singers" [1842]
Ballad.
[Words by Miss Tracy]
Composed by Henry Russell, 1812-1900.

Philadelphia: John F. Nunns, 131 Chestnut St.

1.
Oh weary, weary are our feet,
  And weary, weary is our way,
Thro’ many a long and crowded street
  We’ve wandered mournfully today;
My little sister she is pale,
  She is too tender and too young
To bear the autumn’s sullen gale,
  And all day long the child had sung.

2.
She was our mother’s favourite child,
  Who loved her for her eyes of blue,
And she is delicate and mild,
  She cannot do what I can do.
She never met her father’s eyes,
  Although they were so like her own;
In some far distant sea he lies,
  A father to his child unknown.

3.
The first time that she lisped my name,
  A little playful thing was she;
How proud we were,­­ yet that night came
  The tale how he had sunk at sea.
My mother never raised her head;
  How strange how white how cold she grew!
It was a broken heart they said­­
  I wish our hearts were broken too. 

4.
We have no home­­ we have no friends
  They said our home no more was ours
Our cottage where the ashtree bends,
  The garden we had filled with flowers.
The sounding shells our father brought,
  That we might hear the sea at home;
Our bees, that in the summer wrought
  The winter’s golden honeycomb.

5.
We wandered forth mid wind and rain,
  No shelter from the open sky;
I only wish to see again
  My mother’s grave and rest and die,
Alas it is a weary thing
  To sing our ballads o’er and o’er;
The songs we used at home to sing­­
  Alas we have a home no more!