THE SAXON SHILLING

Hark, the martial tramp is heard,
The sound of soldiers fife and drumming.
Eyes are staring, hearts are stirred,
For bold recruits the brave they're coming.
Ribbons flaunt and feathers gay;
The sights and sounds they're surely thrilling.
Dazzled village youths today
Will flock to take the Saxon shilling.

Ye whose spirits would not yield,
In peace to parish tyrants longer,
And ye, who wear the villain brow,
And ye, who pine in hopeless hunger,
Fools, without the brave man's faith,
All slaves and starvelings who are willing,
To sell themselves in shame and death,
Take now that blood-stained Saxon shilling.

Ere you from your mountains go,
To feel the scourge of foreign fever,
Swear to serve the faithless foe,
Who lures you from your home forever.
Swear henceforth his tool to be,
To slaughter, trained by ceaseless drilling,
Honour, home and liberty,
Abandoned for a blood-stained shilling.

Go to find, 'mid crime and toil,
The doom to which such guilt is hurried,
And go to leave on India's soil,
Your bones to bleach, accursed, unburied.
Go to slay the just and brave,
Whose wrongs with wrath the world are filling,
And go to slay each brother slave,
Or scorn that blood-stained Saxon shilling.

Irishmen, why should you bleed,
To fill the tide of British glory,
Aiding despots in their greed.
Who've changed our green so oft to gory?
None but those who wish to see,
The noblest killed and the meanest killing,
And true hearts severed from the free,
Would ever take a Saxon shilling.

Irishmen reserve your strength
Until the hour of glorious duty,
When freedom's light will shine again
On our land of bravery and beauty.
Bribes and threats we'll heed no more.
Let naught but justice make you willing,
To leave your own dear Irish shore,
And never again take a Saxon shilling.


Source: A Living Voice: The Frank Harte Song Collection, edited by Terry Moylan (Craft Recordings Dublin, 2020) pp 152-153

Recording by Frank Harte & Donal Lunny: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ka0KG1e2TcU

I'll transcribe a MIDI on request.

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Traditional Ballad Index entry:

Saxon Shilling, The

DESCRIPTION: The martial parades "dazzled village youths to-day Will crowd to take the Saxon Shilling." Fools sell themselves "to shame and death," "crush the just and brave." "Irish hearts! why should you bleed, To swell the tide of British glory"?
AUTHOR: Kevin T. Buggy (Source: Zimmerman-SongsOfIrishRebellion)
EARLIEST DATE: 1842 ("The song was first printed in the _Belfast Vindicator_ in 1842," according to Zimmerman-SongsOfIrishRebellion)
KEYWORDS: army recruiting Ireland nonballad political
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Zimmerman-SongsOfIrishRebellion 49, "The Saxon Shilling" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #V29853
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Harding B 19(68), "The Saxion Shilling" [only misspelled in the title], unknown, n.d.; also 2806 c.15(39), "The Saxion Shilling" [only misspelled in the title]
NOTES [163 words]: Broadsides Bodleian Harding B 19(68) and Bodleian 2806 c.15(39) are duplicates. The last two lines are identically mangled.
Zimmerman-SongsOfIrishRebellion: "The man who enlisted as a soldier was given the 'King's shilling' by a recruiting officer."
The ballad is recorded on one of the CD's issued around the time of the bicentenial of the 1798 Irish Rebellion. See:
Franke Harte and Donal Lunny, "The Saxon's Shilling" (on Franke Harte and Donal Lunny, "My Name is Napoleon Bonaparte," Hummingbird Records HBCD0027 (2001)) - BS
One suspects that author Buggy never missed any meals, which was the main reason Irish youth enlisted in the army. Though his source of income certainly wasn't his writing; I have been unable to find anything else he wrote, and he is not mentioned in Patrick C. Power's A Literary History of Ireland.
For the typical British recruiting method of The King's Shilling and getting potential soldiers drunk, see the notes to "The Recruited Collier." - RBW
Last updated in version 5.1
File: Zimm049

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