Author Topic: Add: Come All you Worthy Christian Men

dmcg

 Posted - 08 Nov 02 - 01:10 pm
Come All You Worthy Christian Men

Come all you worthy Christian men,
That dwell upon this land,
Don't spend your time in rioting:
Remember you are but man.
Be watchful for your latter end;
Be ready when you're call'd.
There are many changes in this world;
Some rise while others fall.

Now Job he was a patient man,
The richest in the East;
When he was brought to poverty,
His sorrows soon increased.
He bore them all most patiently;
From sin he did refrain;
He always trusted in the Lord;
He soon got rich again.

Come all you worthy Christian men,
That are so very poor,
Remember how poor Lazarus
Lay at the rich man's door,
While begging of the crumbs of bread
That from his table fell.
The Scriptures do inform us all
That in heaven he doth dwell.

The time, alas, it soon will come
When parted we shall be;
But all the difference it will make
Is in joy and misery.
And we must give a strict account
Of great as well as small:
Believe me now, dear Christian friends
That God will judge us all


Source: One Hundred English Folksongs, Ed C Sharp, ISBN 0-486-23192-5


Notes:

Cecil Sharp wrote:

SEVERAL versions of this moralizing ballad with tunes are printed in the Journal of the Folk-Song Society (volume i, p. 74; volume ii, pp. 115-122). The tune is one of the most common, the most characteristic, and, I would add, the most beautiful of English folk-airs. The version here given is in the AEolian mode, but it is often sung in the major, Dorian, and Mixolydian modes. For other versions of the tune set to different words, see English County Songs (PP. 34, 68, and 102); and Songs of the West (No. 111, 2d ed.). The well known air "The Miller and the Dee" is a minor and "edited" version of the same tune. Chappell, too, noted down a version of it which he heard sung in the streets of Kilburn in the early years of the last century (Popular Music, p. 748).
For an exhaustive note by Miss Broadwood upon the tune and its origin, see the Journal of the Folk-Song Society (volume ii, p. 119).

("Last Century" here means 1800-1899, of course)

Database entry is here

Edited By dmcg - 11/8/2002 4:58:03 PM




Ed

 Posted - 08 Nov 02 - 06:21 pm
With undue pedantry, I'll point out that "Last Century" actually means 1801-1900...

Ed

Edited By Ed - 11/8/2002 6:29:33 PM




dmcg

 Posted - 08 Nov 02 - 07:15 pm
Damn, I knew someone would say that! I even considered putting "1801-1899 with another year at one end or the other" ...

I am told that Victorians celebrated the new century in 1901, not 1900, in line with Ed's post.




Ed

 Posted - 08 Nov 02 - 07:23 pm
And the Victorians were right. There was no AD 0, so there really is no arguement.

But it doesn't really matter, I was just being Puckish. Sorry Dave.

Ed



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