Library:The Lonesome Boatman

The Lonesome Boatman
Author	Bobby Sands
Type	Poem

In the middle of the sleeping lake

The Lonesome boatman dwells,

Around him rise the bracken hills

The dreamy glens and dells.

The skies are red and rolling

Tinted in the twilight’s velvet hue

The ragged scarecrow peers in relief

To where the crackling crows have flown.

The lonesome boatman doesn’t move

His clothes are old and worn

Oh, lonesome boatman reveal to me why,

Why you look forlorn.

Is it life’s sorrows

Or a forgotten memory that you have found

Or do you listen to the wind

For the boatmen you’ve seen drown?

Oh, lonesome boatman, there’s a gleaming star

High above your head.

The waters glisten in the dusk

Are they tears that you have shed?

Oh, lonesome boatman, the birds are here,

The morning shadows fall.

Oh, friends, why must you be

But a dying shadow on my lonely cell wall.