Hmmm... the second paragraph of my last post seems to have disappeared into the ether. All I said there was that "Morning Has Broken" is indeed a beautiful song, even though I don't think it can be considered "atheist".

More submissions for the Atheist Hymnal: "Home on the Range", "Home Sweet Home" ("...there's no place like home..."), "Old Man River", "The Water Is Wide", "The Meeting of the Waters", "Begone, Dull Care".

I'll post lyrics for those last two, for those who aren't familiar with the songs:


THE MEETING OF THE WATERS

There is not in the wide world a valley so sweet
As that vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet
Oh! The last rays of feeling and life must depart
Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart
Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart.

Yet it was not that nature had shed o'er the scene
Her purest of crystal and brightest of green
'Twas not her soft magic of streamlet or hill
Oh, no! It was something more exquisite still
Oh, no! It was something more exquisite still.

'Twas that friends, the belov'd of my bosom were near
Who made every dear scene of enchantment more dear
And who felt how the best charms of nature improve
When we see them reflected from looks that we love
When we see them reflected from looks that we love.

Sweet vale of Avoca! How calm could I rest
In thy bosom of shade, with the friends I love best
Where the storms that we feel in this cold world should cease
And our hearts, like thy waters, be mingled in peace
And our hearts, like thy waters, be mingled in peace.

(The name Avoca means "meeting of the waters" or "a watering spout of knowledge"; the Vale of Avoca is in Ireland.)
(Curiously, the parody of this song is in the DigiTrad – Digital Tradition archive – but not the original!)


BEGONE, DULL CARE!

Begone, dull care!
I prithee, begone from me
Begone, dull care!
You and I shall never agree
Long time hast thou been tarrying here
And fain thou wouldst me kill
But in faith, dull care
Thou never shall have thy will.

Too much care
Will make a man turn grey
And too much care
Will turn an old man to clay
My wife shall dance and I shall sing
So merrily pass the day
For I hold it one of the wisest things
To drive dull care away.

(Also see "Drive Dull Care Away" version in the DigiTrad archive: [click])