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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 @work @mining filename[ DALESLIT TUNE FILE: DALESLIT CLICK TO PLAY SOF |
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