Print This Page
Just twenty years ago today, I held my mother's hand
As she kissed and blessed her only son, going to a foreign land.
The neighbours took me from her breast and told her I must go,
But I could hear my mother's words, tho' they were faint and low.
Goodbye, Johnny dear, when you're far away,
Don't forget your dear old mother far across the sea.
Write a letter now and then and send her all you can,
And don't forget where e'er you roam that you're an Irishman.
I sailed away from Queenstown, that is the coast of Cork,
A very pleasant voyage we had and soon were in New York,
My friends came to meet me there and work I got next day,
But thro' all this hospitality I could hear my mother say.
Goodbye, Johnny dear, when you're far away,
Don't forget your dear old mother far across the sea.
Write a letter now and then and send her all you can,
And don't forget where e'er you roam that you're an Irishman.
One day a letter came to me, it came from Ireland,
The postmark showed it came from home, it was not my mother's hand.
T'was father who had wrote to say that she had passed away,
And just as if from Heaven above I could hear my mother say.