No. 28 Mourner’s Lamentation or Church’s Desolation, Chh 265
Pentatonic, mode 1 (I II — IV V VI —)
Poor mourning soul in deep distress,
Just waken’d from a slumber,
Who wanders in sin’s wilderness,
Out of the condemned number.
The thunder roars from Sinai’s mount,
Fills him with awful terror;
And he like nought in God’s account,
All drown’d with grief and sorrow.
Oh, woe is me that I was born,
Or after death have being;
Fain would I be some earthly worm,
Which has no future being;
Or had I died when I was young,
Oh, what would I have given!
Then might with babes my little tongue,
Been praising God in heaven.
But now may I lament my case,
Just worn away by trouble;
From day to day I look for peace,
But find my sorrow double.
Cries Satan, “Desp’rate is your state,
Time’s been you might repented,
But now you see it is too late,
So make yourself contented!”
How can I live, how can I rest
Under this sore temptation,
Fearing the day of grace is past,
Lord, hear my lamentation!
For I am weary of my life,
My groans and bitter crying;
My wants are great, my mind’s in strife,
My spirit’s almost dying.
Without relief I soon shall die,
No hope of getting better;
Show pity, Lord, and hear the cry
Of a distress-ed sinner.
For I’m resolv-ed here to trust
At thy footstool for favor,
Pleading for life, though death be just,
Make haste, Lord, to deliver.
“Come, hungry, weary, naked soul,
For such I ne’er rejected;
My righteousness sufficient is,
Though you have long neglected.
Come, weary soul, for right you have,
I am such soul’s protector;
My honor is engaged to save
All under this character.
“I came to seek, I came to save,
I came to make atonement,
I lived, I died, laid in the grave
To save you from the judgment.”
By faith, my glorious Lord I see;
Oh, how it doth amaze me
To see him bleeding on the tree,
From death and hell to raise me.
The above homespun text points to the rural preacher or revival song leader of the late eighteenth century as its source. It is a conversion story in dramatic form, the Savior, the Sinner and the Devil having parts in the drama.
The earliest known occurrence of the tune is in the Vermont book, Ingalls’ Christian Harmony of 1805, p. 77. In the Sacred Harp of 1844, p. 89, it is found with a different text and is entitled ‘Church’s Desolation’. It is claimed there by J. T. White, and in the Christian Harmony of 1866, by William Walker. Both were South Carolinians, from which territory Reed Smith recorded the tune in 1913 as one of the ‘Barbara Allen’ settings; SCB 130. This tune was probably adopted for ‘Church’s Desolation’ and for the ‘Barbara Allen’ ballad from the Scotch ballad ‘Wae’s me for Prince Charlie’. See Kennedy’s Handbook of Scottish Song, p. 20. The London Era in the early 1860’s speaks of this as the “celebrated Jacobite song.” The ‘Prince Charlie’ of the song is Charles II of England. Hence the song, the text at least, is nearly 300 years old. The same tune is used also for ‘Geordie’, Last Leaves, p. 133; ‘Locks and Bolts’, Sharp, ii., 19; ‘Lazarus’, Sharp, ii., 30; an old Irish tune in Petrie, No. 363; ‘Johnny Fa’’, SMM, No. 62; and ‘Hynd Horn’, Motherwell, Appendix, Musick, No. 13.
The noted composer of hymn tunes, J. B. Dykes, was influenced by the ‘Prince Charlie’ melody in the building up of ‘Lindisfarne’; see Hymns Ancient and Modern, No. 156, second tune.