Thread #12170 Message #222608
Posted By: George Seto - af221@chebucto.ns.ca
03-May-00 - 07:46 PM
Thread Name: Farewell to Nova Scotia --lyrics request
Subject: RE: Farewell to Nova Scotia --lyrics request
Upon followup to this thread, the information I've been given recently is that Dr. Helen Creighton assembled the verses we know as the song from several versions of the song. She thought these made the most coherent version. I'll have to see if I can get a copy of Dan McKinnon's information.He sings a variant of the song on his newest CD.
According to other research by Linda C Craig and Marjory Whitelaw, "The Nova Scotia Song" began as a poem called "The Soldier's Adieu" by Robert Tannahill (1774-1810), from Paisley, Scotland.
Question. I've been looking for the past couple of months and haven't come up with this poem. Does anyone have the words to it?
Lyrics furnished by Crowhugger and Dale Rose. Source: a book, published by J. and R. Parlane, Paisley (shows also published in Glasgow & London) in 1911, of Tannahill's songs & poems.
^^
THE SOLDIER'S ADIEU
The weary sun's gane doun the west,
The birds sit nodding on the tree,
All nature now inclines for rest,
But rest allow'd there's none for me:
The trumpet calls to wars alarms,
The rattling drum forbids my stay;
Ah! Nancy, bless thy soldier's arms,
For ere morn I will be far away.
I grieve to leave my comrades dear,
I mourn to leave my native shore,
To leave my aged parents here,
And the bonnie lass whom I adore.
But tender thoughts must now be hushed,
When duty calls, I must obey;
Fate wills it so that part we must,
The morn I will be far away.
Adieu! dear Scotland's sea-beat coast!
Ye misty vales and mountains blue!
When on the heaving ocean tost,
I'll cast a wishful look to you.
And now, dear Nancy, fare-thee-weel!
May Providence thy guardian be!
And in the camp, or in the fiel',
My constant thoughts shall turn to thee.
Posted By: Jon Bartlett
29-Aug-02 - 02:48 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Farewell to Nova Scotia
Subject: Origins: Farewell to Nova Scotia
There's a scholarly 10pp. article titled "The Scottish Origins of "Farewell to Nova Scotia" by Linda Christine Craig, in Dalhousie Review, Vol 58 No. 3 Autumn 1978. She explains the connection to "The Soldier's Adieu", attributed to Robert Tannahill. This poem was first printed in a Glasgow newsapaper September 1808, and thence in various editions of Tannahill's poems, via an appearance in an 1825 chapbook (now in the University Library at St Andrews). A good read and thoroughly researched.Jon Bartlett
Thread #12170 Message #1029073
Posted By: Charley Noble
03-Oct-03 - 03:07 PM
Thread Name: Farewell to Nova Scotia --lyrics request
Subject: RE: Farewell to Nova Scotia --lyrics request
Here's some more info on the composer of "The Soldier's Adieu":
Robert Tannahill (1774-1810)
The fifth of eight children, Robert Tannahill was born on 3 June 1774 at Castle Street, Paisley. His father was a silk weaver and the family moved to a thatched cottage at 11 Queen Street in Paisley (where the Paisley Tannahill Club still meet). Tannahill received a basic education but he read widely and showed an early interest in and a talent for poetry. When he was twelve years old he was apprenticed to his father as a weaver. He continued his self education, learning to play the flute and going to theatre performances in Glasgow.
In the years following his father's death in 1802 he began to publish his poetry, in some cases as words to existing tunes, particularly Irish music. Frail and shy, his poetry was often inspired by the countryside around Paisley. Despite having a deformity in his right leg, he would go for long walks in the Gleniffer Braes above the town. Poems such as "The Braes of Gleniffer" and "The Flower O' Levern Side" were about local haunts. He also wrote about soldiers and war as the loss of life during the Napoleonic Wars had an affect on him.
Tannahill founded a Burns Club in Paisley in 1803 at the Sun Tavern in High Street and James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, was a guest there. Like [60] Robert Burns before him, Tannahill showed an understanding of humanity, love and friendship. He published a collection of his works in 1807 and they were well received. However, when another group of poems was rejected by an Edinburgh publisher he burned many of his writings. He was often prone to bouts of depression and he drowned himself in a canal in Paisley on 17 May 1810.
In 1883 a series of concerts were held on Gleniffer Braes and the money raised paid for a statue to Paisley's most famous poet (see above). It was erected close to Paisley Abbey.
Cheerily,
Charley Noble