Tune Req: Men of England

Subject: Men of England
From: Fedele
Date: 21 Aug 00 - 08:00 AM

Not really a folk song. It´s a poem by P.B. Shelley (1st half of 19th century English Romantic poet) I found in a book - not one of his most famous poems. It urges English workers to rebel against those who parasite upon their labour. I just wonder if anyone thought about making a song out of it, but I told you, it´s not very famous.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Men of England
From: Brendy
Date: 21 Aug 00 - 08:13 AM

Song to the Men of England

Men of England, wherefore plough
For the lords who lay ye low?
Wherefore weave with toil and care
The rich robes your tyrants wear?

Wherefore feed, and clothe, and save,
From the cradle to the grave,
Those ungrateful drones who would
Drain your sweat -- nay, drink your blood?

Wherefore, Bees of England, forge
Many a weapon, chain, and scourge
That these stingless drones may spoil
The forced produce of your toil?

Have ye leisure, comfort, calm,
Shelter, food, love's gentle balm?
Or what is it ye buy so dear
With your pain and with your fear?

The seed ye sow, another reaps;
The wealth ye find, another keeps;
The robes ye weave, another wears;
The arms ye forge, another bears.

Sow seed, -- but let no tyrant reap;
Find wealth, -- let no impostor heap;
Weave robes, -- let not the idle wear;
Forge arms, -- in your defence to bear.

Shrink to your cellars, holes, and cells;
In halls ye deck another dwells.
Why shake the chains ye wrought? Ye see
The steel ye tempered glance on ye.

With plough and spade, and hoe and loom,
Trace your grave, and build your tomb,
And weave your winding-sheet, till fair
England be your sepulchre.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Something to hum over.

B.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Men of England
From: Jeri
Date: 21 Aug 00 - 08:48 AM

Shelley Posen wrote "No More Fish No Fishermen" and set it to the tune of a hymn. The tune would work well with Shelley's poem. Anyway, I don't know what the name of the hymn is, but there's a Real Audio file on Fallen Angle's Music Catalogue page.

(If you get some weird message when you click on the RA link, paste this sucker - http://magi.com/~ianrobb/audio/HD/fish.ram - into your RealAudio player.)

Does anyone know the name of the hymn???

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Men of England
From: Anglo
Date: 21 Aug 00 - 04:57 PM

Funny that, I was reading the poem and thinking that it would go nicely to "See Amid the Winter Snow", I scrolled a little further down and ! lo and behold Jeri beat me to it. But any hymn of that metre would work, I suspect. Shelly adapted an idea from Coope, Boyes & Simpson and rewrote their lament for the end of coal mining in England.