From "The English Songbook" by Harold Scott (1926) comes the claim that "Dark Times Cease Forever More" with painfully similar lyrics and the exact same tune was written by a pastoral laborer who was laid aside by paralysis and warned not to speak. When his voice returned, he burst into song and dedicated it to Queen Victoria in 1866. It is said to be Number 1 in a series of bridal songs????

Dark Times Cease Forever More

Lay aside religion's pleasures and count its many tears
While we all share sorrow with the poor.
There's a plaint sounding loudly forever in our ears-
Oh! Dark Times! Cease forever more!

CHORUS:
'Tis the wail, the sigh of the weary
Dark Times! Dark Times! Come again no more!
Dark Times! Come again no more!

Tho' in holiness and beauty we worship night and day
There are frail forms fainting at our door,
With a cry never silent and pleading looks we say
Oh! Dark Times! Cease for evermore!
CHORUS



The folk process in action or outright plagiarism?