The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #109739   Message #2296369
Posted By: GUEST,Sarah
24-Mar-08 - 06:47 AM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: William Whaley's Lament
Subject: Lyr Req: ? William Whalley's Lament
I'm looking for the missing / incorrect words to fill in the lyrics to a song I think is called William Whalley's Lament. It's on a CD that was hand-compiled and given to me and I have no idea of artist / recording / origins.

From listening, these are the words I can pick up:

Oh when the night is still and silent
Long before the call of dawn
I hear the cries of Boston harbour
On the night that there my thoughts are borne

Chorus:
Oh the night I sleep with Hannah
Is a treat(?) to stand(?) by day
Though I'm forced across the ocean
My dreams are free to wander as they may

I stole a loaf to ease her hunger
For her body held our child
They sentenced me to transportation
To the new land o'er the sea so wild

I feared the journey would defeat me
As sick as I could not describe
Bloodied limbs beneath the shackles
Seldom we were fed the ????

Now seven seas they lay between us
One for each year trans??
The child he will be born and growing
From Van Dieman's land I long to part

Oh when the night is still and silent
Long before the call of dawn
I hear the cries of a foreign harbour
On the night that there my thoughts are borne

Any help gratefully received. Thanks very much.