Subject: Lyr Add: ENGLAND'S POWER AND GLORY (Robb Johnson)
From:
Leadfingers
Date: 04 Mar 10 - 10:44 AM
From Robb's Song Book (No longer available it would seem)
If you sail around Australia, there's a land of barren stone
Where once the heathen aborigine in ignorance did roam.
We saw them naked. We called them savage, passing fire from hand to hand.
We saw them fish, but we were farmers. We saw their fertile land.
England's power and glory, in your name this was done,
In the name of the Bible and the gun.
The seas ran high round Tasmania. We sent there poor scum that fought back,
And if the convicts raped and murdered, well, it was only blacks.
Sometimes a passing whaler put in, took a black girl for some sport,
Then with the settlers came the preachers and the soldiers for the fort.
And as the sheep spread throughout the island, and as the town began to grow,
The black blood the white money they began to flow.
With our dogs and our drums and our muskets, we drove them forth to the wilderness,
Killed and starved and paid a preacher to bring in what was left.
Names and clothes and education, civilisation is what we gave.
White man's disease and white man's liquor; we gave them white men's graves.
The benefits of white man's magic; even their dead did not escape.
We took their bones to our museums to prove the link between man and ape.
England's power and glory, to our shame was this done.
In the name of the Bible and the gun.
Now the sun sets on the Empire and history leaves us to our fate.
We who came to teach learned only too much to learn, we learned too late.
England's power and glory, in your name was this done,
In the name of the Bible and the gun.
So if you sail around Australia, there's a land of barren stone
Where once the peaceful aborigine in true innocence did roam.
Sung by Maggie Holland with E C B B
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sj
