The Immigrant’s Lament Poem by Ross DixPeek

The Immigrant’s Lament

By
Ross Dix-Peek


Oh cold, cumbered foreign shore
I do thee so implore
For warmth and respite
From this my sad, dejected plight

To these lands I did hat in hand come
Seeking a better future, sweet freedom
Yet now so very beleaguered I do feel
A drowning soul upon its keel

For my family I did joyous venture
To embrace this cold unhappy censure
For them I gave my tomorrow
So that they may not my sorrow know

And each day ‘neath this unforgiving sky
I do the sweet heavens on high
Beseech for blessings and times fertile
Yet still this torrid land does me so revile

For my family I do the empty streets endless trudge
Needs be but a hopeful drudge
But oh cruel mistress I do decree
Where be thy great bounteous mercy

Each day I know only but the lash of a foreign tongue
Great toil and sweat I do give to succour my dear wife and young
And yet the faint spectre of hope is nowhere to be seen
This new day like the last, be also just obscene

And still do I these stygian depths plumb
As I thro’ the pages of my gilded dreams thumb
Each day still I willingly give of my humble life
To stem my dear family’s mortal strife

Oh, how I do miss the warm kiss of my native land
Again to upon its sweet, sweet soil stand
And yet, so very deep within
I know it is upon this soil that my family’s life shall begin

So, oh vile and cruel shore
Even though I thee so deplore
Come great feast or mere crumb
Never shall I succumb

Come cold stinging rain
Or awful and eternal pain
I here shall stay
For their tomorrows, I willing do give my today!