English Mother's Lament
Lyrics - Sadie McBride
Music - Castalia
What happened to all our traditions? Between wars and emigration, generations of European families were broken up, and the end result is the loss of the continuity of our Old Ways.
See where the shadows fall in the meadow
Lionel and Isobel lost in their play
Beautiful Isobel sweet and adoring
Lionel so fair responsive and gay
Why do they come not though oft I am calling?
Why are their forms always fading away?
Now I am waiting sad in my waiting
Knowing that time cannot bring them again
Lionel is sleeping ‘neath the white crosses
With comrades who fought and died on the plain
Never again to play in the meadow
Laughing and leaping in sunshine and rain
Isobel journeyed over the ocean
Followed her love to a land wide and free
Life and it’s labours kept her from me
Never again her sweet face will I see
There where the wheat fields stretch to the westward
Isobel sleeps where she’s wanted to be.
Now I must hold them close to my bosom
Hold them where time cannot take them away
See them in all the glow of their childhood
Isobel beautiful Lionel so gay
Death cannot take them memory guarded
Only life’s moments are lost but not they.
Death cannot take them memory guarded
Only life’s moments are lost but not they.
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