Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

William McCarty, comp. The American National Song Book. 1842.

American Seamen’s Lamentation

FROM dungeons of Britain, which float on the main,

O hear the sad tale of our sorrowful moan;

The sun of your freedom for us shines in vain,

As captives we live but to sigh and to groan.

Then pity, dear brothers, the fate we deplore,

Let our dear native land but receive us once more.

The insolent Briton, who rules us with scorn,

With a heart made of stone, does but mock at our grief,

Nor feels for the pangs of our state so forlorn,

In hopes that our thraldom may find no relief.

Then pity, dear brothers, the fate we deplore,

Let our dear native country receive us once more.

O brothers! ye boast of your liberty won,

By Washington’s feats and by deeds of your own;

No ray meets our eyes of bright liberty’s sun,

Forced to fight and to die for a land not our own.

Then pity, dear brothers, the fate we deplore,

Let our friends and our country receive us once more.

How happy with you to conquer or die,

For country and liberty offer our lives,

At the word of command be still ready to fly,

Protecting our parents, our children, and wives.

Then pity, dear fathers, the fate we deplore,

Let our dear native country receive us once more.

Forget not your sailors in thraldom severe,

Who cease not to think and to pine after you;

Be not plunder’d of all which a man holds most dear,

Nor suffer our days to be number’d but few.

Then pity, dear nation, our sorrowful strain,

Nor let us forever solicit in vain.