The Vicar of Hawkshead
Lyrics H.Morland

I am the vicar of Hawkshead, sir, and given to speaking true O
This thing it happened in the year of 1852 O
I am no crank imaginer, nor any the more than you O

Chorus
I am the vicar of Hawkshead, sir, and given to speaking true, O
And given to speaking true.

One cold March night, by waterside, I was trudging home to bed O
I'd been to comfort a widowed soul, whose man was lately dead O
And nothing but simple Christian thoughts sang quietly in my head O

Chorus

And as I walked I saw ahead, a country woman's shape O
Or such it seemed in bonnet and scarf and a dark enfolding cape O
A good few minutes my eyes marked that dark and plodding shape O

Chorus

"A rare cold night" I said to her, but never a word she replied O
I turned, but Heaven send me Grace, this was no womankind O
No human features marked that face, or none that I could find O

Chorus

I lacked the power, or I'd have fled, but forced my eyes to stare O
I see no form, but only space, there's a stench in the cold night air O
As if a body two months dead lay still unburied there O

Chorus

Then the road was bare in the cold moonlight, with nothing alive to show O
And only the track of my own two feet lay printed in the snow O
I am no crank imaginer, nor any the more than you O

Chorus

From the singing of Carl Hogsden and Jane Threlfall 1993

I presume (safely enough, surely) that the final Os are Carl's rather than in the original, and can be left to the singer. I can't help with the tune, I'm afraid.