Digital Tradition Mirror

Dalesman's Litany

(This score available as ABC, SongWright, PostScript, PNG, or PMW, or a MIDI file)
Pennywhistle notation and Dulcimer tab for this song is also available

Dalesman's Litany

It's hard when folks can't find their work
  where they've been bred and born
When I was young I always thought
  I'd bide among fruits and corn
But I've been forced to work in towns
  so here's my litany
From Hull and Halifax and Hell
  Good Lord deliver me

When I was courting Mary Jane
  The old Squire he said one day
I've no room here for wedded folks
  Choose whether to wed or stay
Well I couldn't give up the lass that I loved
  So to town we had to flee
From Hull and Halifax and Hell
  Good Lord deliver me
I've worked in Leeds and Huddersfield
  and addled honest brass
At Bradford, Keighley, Rotherham
  I've kept m'bairns and m'lass
I've travelled all three Ridings round
  And once I went to sea
From forges, mills and sailing ships
  Good Lord deliver me

I've walked at night thru Sheffield lanes
  T'was the same as being in Hell
Where furnaces thrust out tongues of fire
  and roared like the wind on the fell
And I've shovelled coals in the Barnsley pits
  with muck up to m'knee
From Sheffield, Barnsley, Rotherham
  Good Lord deliver me

I've seen fog creeping across Leeds brig
  as thick as Bastille soup
I've lived where folks were stowed away
  like rabbits in a coop
And I've seen snow float down Bradford Beck
  as black as ebony
From Hunslet, Holbeck, Wibsey, Slack
  Good lord deliver me

Well now our children are all fled
  to the country we've come back
There's forty miles of heathery moor
  'twixt us and the coal pits slack
And as I sit by the fire at night
  I laugh and shout with glee
From Hull and Halifax and Hell
  Good Lord deliver me.

recorded by Hart and Prior on Olde England
  and Frankie Armstrong on Here's a Health
SOF

Thanks to Mudcat for the Digital Tradition!