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about

This song was inspired by "The Barbarous Years: The Peopling of British North America - The Conflict of Civilizations, 1600-1675," by Bernard Bailyn. The tune is the melody to a hymn I used to sing in church as a child. I later learned that melody was originally to a madrigal celebrating the English victory over the French at the Battle of Agincourt, 1415.

lyrics

Chesapeake Carol

I was a lad on England’s streets,
Without no ale or bread to eat,
Wherefore they brought me to their keep,
And sold me to the Company.
My master say I am not owned,
Except for bond and stowage.
So to America I’ll go,
God grant that freedom I might find.

Baptized they sure required of me,
And clothed in Christ sufficiently.
Provisions for our mortal souls
Could not prepare us for hell’s dark shoals.
They shipped us in their wretched hold
Across the black Atlantic.
Onto the shores of Chesapeake
Where fell we down upon our knees.

Deo gratias, deo gratias Anglia, redde pro victoria

The banner raised and worship done,
They turned us to and work begun.
But winter came so swift and fast,
And shelter hard in that marchland grass.
It was not long ere we had lost
Our first and many after.
I trembled at the stockade wall
While from the fog a dark death stared.

The Powhatans, they came to trade
With furs for beads so simply made.
And we our orders had been given
To treat them fair though they were heathen.
But orders so far from their source
Could not dissuade our muskets.
So took we all we wanted then,
And raped their women and killed their men.

Virginia, O, we knew thee not.
The blood we spilt was blood begot.
There lords, and earls, and baronry
Were slain at loss to the Company.
There was no grace without ending,
No king recalled us savely.
And I, alone, was left to die
Beneath the blood and blackened sky.

credits

from Where the Lone Pine Stands, released November 5, 2015
lyrics: d. schramm
tune: Agincourt Carol (trad. English)
guitar & vocals: d. schramm
banjo: r. wittke

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Daniel Schramm Washington, D.C.

Two guys, a guitar, a banjo, and a dobro, just sitting by the river.

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