The Dalesman’s Litany

Lyrics

[Verse 1] It's hard when folks can't find the work where they've been bred and born When I was young I always thought I'd bide 'midst roots and corn But I've been forced to work in town, so here's my litany From Hull and Halifax and hell, good Lord deliver me [Verse 2] When I was courting Mary Jane, the old squire says to me I've got no rooms for wedded folk, choose whether to go or to stay I could not give up the girl I loved, so to town I was forced to flee From Hull and Halifax and hell, good Lord deliver me [Verse 3] I've worked in Leeds and Huddersfield and I've earned some honest brass In Bradford, Keighley, Rotherham I've kept my bairns and lass I've travelled all three Ridings 'round and once I went to sea From forges, mills and coaling boats, good Lord deliver me [Verse 4] I've walked at night through Sheffield lanes, 'twas just as being in hell Where furnaces thrust out tongues of fire and roared like the wind on the fell I've sammed up coals in Barnsley pits with muck up to my knee From Barnsley, Sheffield, Rotherham, good Lord deliver me [Verse 5] I've seen fog creep across Leeds bridge as thick as Bastille soup And 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, Wibsey Stack, good Lord deliver me [Instrumental break] [Verse 6] But now that all our children have grown, to the country we've come back There's forty miles of heathery moor 'twixt us and the coalpits' stack And as I sit by the fire at night, I laugh and shout with glee From Hull and Halifax and hell the good Lord delivered me