"I Am the Little Irish Boy"
Henry David Thoreau is one of America's best-loved poets and authors, known especially for his work Walden, with its meditations on nature. In this 1850 poem, Thoreau turns his attentive eye to a "little Irish boy," destined for a life of manual labor, whose circumstances of extreme poverty are reminiscent of those faced by many early Irish immigrants.
I am the little Irish boy
   That lives in the shanty
I am four years old today
   And shall soon be one and twenty
   I shall grow up
   And be a great man
   And shovel all day
   As hard as I can.
   Down in the deep cut  Â
   Where the men lived
   Who made the Railroad.
For supper
   I have some potato
   And sometimes some bread
   And then if it’s cold
       I go right to bed.
   I lie on some straw
   Under my father’s coat
   My mother does not cry
   And my father does not scold
   For I am a little Irish Boy
   And I’m four years old.
Creator | Henry David Thoreau
Item Type | Fiction/Poetry
Cite This document | Henry David Thoreau, “"I Am the Little Irish Boy",” SHEC: Resources for Teachers, accessed April 26, 2024, https://shec.ashp.cuny.edu/items/show/767.