DALESMAN'S LITANY



It's hard when folks can't find their work

where they've been bred and born

When I was young I always thought

I'd bide among fruits and corn

But I've been forced to work in towns

so here's my litany

From Hull and Halifax and Hell

Good Lord deliver me



When I was courting Mary Jane

The old Squire he said one day

I've no room here for wedded folks

Choose whether to wed or stay

Well I couldn't give up the lass that I loved

So to town we had to flee

From Hull and Halifax and Hell

Good Lord deliver me

I've worked in Leeds and Huddersfield

and addled honest brass

At Bradford, Keighley, Rotherham

I've kept m'bairns and m'lass

I've travelled all three Ridings round

And once I went to sea

From forges, mills and sailing ships

Good Lord deliver me



I've walked at night thru Sheffield lanes

T'was the same as being in Hell

Where furnaces thrust out tongues of fire

and roared like the wind on the fell

And I've shovelled coals in the Barnsley pits

with muck up to m'knee

From Sheffield, Barnsley, Rotterham

Good Lord deliver me



I've seen fog creeping across Leeds brig

as thick as Bastille soup

I've lived where folks were stowed away

like rabbits in a coop

And I've seen snow float down Bradford Beck

as black as ebony

From Hunslet, Holbeck, Wibsley Slack

Good lord deliver me



Well now our children are all fled

to the country we've come back

There's forty miles of heathery moor

'twixt us and the coal pits slack

And as I sit by the fire at night

I laugh and shout with glee

From Hull and Halifax and Hell

Good Lord deliver me.



recorded by Hart and Prior on Olde England

and Frankie Armstrong on Here's a Health

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