Soldier's Lament, The

DESCRIPTION: "Beneath a far Australian sky an Irish soldier lay." As he is dying he thinks of his boyhood in Ireland and asks to be buried there. "My dying prayer -- May God bless the island of the brave!"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1901 (Hylands-Mammoth-Hibernian-Songster)
KEYWORDS: homesickness death Australia Ireland lament nonballad patriotic soldier
FOUND IN: Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Peacock, p. 163, "The Soldier's Lament" (1 text, 1 tune)
Hylands-Mammoth-Hibernian-Songster, p. 94, "Exile's Lament" (1 text)
Roud #25024
NOTES [94 words]: This appears, on its face, to be derived from On Buena Vista's Battlefield or one of its relatives (or, perhaps Will Hays's "The Drummer Boy of Shiloh" [Laws A15]). But which, and how it came to be as it is (in Canada, no less), I do not know. It seems to be known mostly in Irish songsters, where the title is "The Exile's Lament." The title "The Soldier's Lament" is used in the Index because it's the first one we found in tradition. Roud formerly split Peacock's version from the songster versions, which also contributed to what I now consider a mistake. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.1
File: Peas163

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