Martin:


I've had trouble with the Bodleian search system as well. I tend to browse the collections when I have the time to do it.

I believe that the version I just posted would fit well with the usual air. Lately I've been singing a version of the song given in "The Oxford Book of Sea Song" which has a slightly different melody that I like a lot. In case you don't have access to the Oxford book here's the ABC notation for that melody along with the lyrics:



X:1
T:Lady Franklin's Lament for her Husband
M:4/4
L:1/8
S:Oxford Book of Sea Songs
K:D
(D>F)|A2A2 B2 A>F|(E>D) (E>F) D3"'"D|
E2 (E>F) (G>F) (G>A)|B2B2 A2"'" A>A| BBBB d2 c>B|
A2d2 F2"'" (F>E)|D2 AA (B>F) G>E|E2 D2 D2||


Lady Franklin's Lament for her Husband
The Oxford Book of Sea Songs, Roy Palmer, ed.


You seamen bold that have oft withstood
Wild storms of Neptune's briny flood
Attend to these few lines which I now relate
And put you in mind of a sailor's dream

As homeward bound one night on the deep
Slung in my hammock, I fell fast asleep
I dreamed a dream which I thought was true
Concerning Franklin and his brave crew

I thought as we neared to the Humber shore
I heard a female that did deplore
She wept aloud and seemed to say
Alas, my Franklin is long away

Her mind it seemed in sad distress
She cried aloud, - I can take no rest
Ten thousand pounds I would freely give
To say on earth that my husband lives

Long time it is since two ships of fame
Did bear my husband across the main
With a hundred seamen with courage stout
To find a north-western passage out

With a hundred seamen with hearts so bold
I fear have perished with frost and cold
Alas, she cried, all my life I'll mourn
Since Franklin seems never to return

For since that time seven years are past
And many a keen and bitter blast
Blows o'er the grave where the poor seamen fell
Whose dreadful sufferings no tongue can tell

To find a passage by the North Pole
Where tempests wave and wild thunders roll
Is more than mortal man can do
With hearts undaunted and courage true


There's Captain Austen of Scarborough town
Brave Granville and Penny of much renown
With Captain Ross and so many more
Have long been searching the Arctic shore

They sailed east and they sailed west
Round Greenland's coast they knew the best
In hardships drear they have vainly strove
On mountains of ice their ships were drove

At Baffin's Bay where the whalefish blows
The fate of Franklin nobody knows
Which causes many a wife and child to mourn
In grievous sorrow for their return

These sad forebodings they give me pain
For the long lost Franklin across the main
Likewise the fate of so many before
Who have left their homes to return no more