The Lowlands of Holland
Child #92 (Bonny Bee Hom) 3:50 V, Banjo & NS.
Strictly speaking, this is a broadside ballad, perhaps originally forming part of a longer narrative ballad but now standing by itself as one of numerous 18th and early 19th century laments for lovers forced into active service by the notorious ‘press-gangs’ whose job it was to round up the ‘cannon fodder’ needed to keep Britain ‘mistress of the seas’.
The love that I have chosen was to my heart’s content,
The salt sea shall be frozen before that I repent,
Repent it I shall never until the day I die,
But the lowlands of Holland have parted my love and I.
The very night we got married and lay upon our bed
A press-gang came to my bedside and stood at my bed-head,
Saying, “Arise, arise, you new-married man and come along with me
To the lowlands of Holland to face your enemy.”
But Holland is a cold place, a place where grows no green,
But Holland is a cold place for my love to wander in,
Though money had been so plentiful as leaves grow on the tree,
Yet before I’d time to turn myself my love was stolen from me.
“Be still, be still, my daughter, what makes you to lament?
Is there ne’er a lad in our town can give your heart content?”
There’s lads enough in our town but ne’er a one for me
For I never had but one true love and he was pressed from me.
Strictly speaking, this is a broadside ballad, perhaps originally forming part of a longer narrative ballad but now standing by itself as one of numerous 18th and early 19th century laments for lovers forced into active service by the notorious ‘press-gangs’ whose job it was to round up the ‘cannon fodder’ needed to keep Britain ‘mistress of the seas’.
The love that I have chosen was to my heart’s content,
The salt sea shall be frozen before that I repent,
Repent it I shall never until the day I die,
But the lowlands of Holland have parted my love and I.
The very night we got married and lay upon our bed
A press-gang came to my bedside and stood at my bed-head,
Saying, “Arise, arise, you new-married man and come along with me
To the lowlands of Holland to face your enemy.”
But Holland is a cold place, a place where grows no green,
But Holland is a cold place for my love to wander in,
Though money had been so plentiful as leaves grow on the tree,
Yet before I’d time to turn myself my love was stolen from me.
“Be still, be still, my daughter, what makes you to lament?
Is there ne’er a lad in our town can give your heart content?”
There’s lads enough in our town but ne’er a one for me
For I never had but one true love and he was pressed from me.
