Samuel Jagoe - The Lost Babes of Halifax

Lyrics as transcribed from this recording:

Kind Christians pay attention to those lines you now will hear,
as I pursue them over you cant help but shed a tear.

In eighteen hundred and forty-two, April the 11 day,
two little girls from Preston Road into the woods did stray.
Their Father and their Mother both sick in bed did lay,
twas hand and hand together around the door did play.
Hand in hand together, I saw them leave the door.
The eldest was but six years old and the younger only four.

Jane Elizabeth and Margaret Meagher were those two pretty names.
Two fairer creatures ne er were born dame nature never framed.
They walked abroad together and so merry they did play,
but mark what followed after how soon they lost their way.
There in that lonely wilderness they spent a dismal day.
When night came on they d thought of home, their screening [?] eyes gave way.

The frosty wind blew bitter cold, not a star to yield them light.
The beasts of prey they feared by day and the screaming owls at night.
And when this sad and shocking news did reach the neighbouring town,
Each manly heart with pity filled and thus with grief atoned,
saying Poor Meagher your babes are lost and you are left forlorn .
How true it is as Burns remarked that man was made to mourn.

So, early the next morning turned out one hundred men,
they found poor Meagher and his wife searching that lonely glen,
first casting their eyes to heaven and then up on the grove.
Their prayers and moans and dying cries distressed them as they rove [?].
All that week they hunted, but alas, twas all in vain.
So, in that lonely wilderness those infants did remain.

They would oft-time stop to listen but never heard a sound.
At twelve o clock on Thursday, a bloody rag was found.
Think, gentle people, what a sight if we had but behold,
dying in that wilderness from hunger, fright, and cold.
No mother neigh to close their eye nor a friend to wipe a tear,
Pharoah s heart would surely melt, those dying cries to hear.

On the seventeenth of April turned out a volunt crew,
to search the woods and the dreary plains as the hunters used to do.
From Halifax and Dartmouth and also Porter s Lake,
twelve hundred men assembled, a final search to make.
twas Peter Currey who found them at 12 o clock that day,
on Malcaholley [?] mountain were two little lumps of clay.

The hair was dragged from off their [heads?] their clothes in ribbons torn,
and the tender flesh from head to foot, by the prickly thorns were [gorn?].
The frost it stole upon their heads, their blood began to chill,
their tender nerves could not withstand with all their art and skill.
Headlong, they [followed?] their souls, unwilling turned back their way,
and left their little bodies on that dismal rock to lay.

We left them there no longer for the beasts and birds to tear.
And on a decent bier they were laid and we blessed them with a prayer.
We carried them to their father s house, so that their mother may them behold.
She kissed them o er a thousand times, though they were dead and cold.
Their father, quite distracted was, and overcome with grief.
His neighbours tried to comfort him but could give him no relief.

The cries of their poor mother was dismal for to hear.
to think that death had her bereft of the ones she loved so dear.
on the seventeenth of april they were in one coffin laid,
between Allenvane [?] and Allen s farm their little graves was made,
where thousands did assemble, one last farewell to make.
both rich and poor lamented so for the poor dear children s sake.

The rain was fast a-falling and dismal was that day,
while looking upon Elizabeth, I thought I heard her say,
 Cheer up, my loving neighbours. Return, dry up those tears.
Let us to lay in this cold clay, till Christ himself appears.
Five thousand pounds were offered to that man who did them find.
but Currey, he refused it like a Christian just and kind.

May God forever bless him and lengthen him his days,
our humble poet, Duncan G. Byers, will ever sing his praise.
And now good folks of Halifax who turned out so true and kind,
we pray in heaven hereafter, a just reward you ll find.
None forgetting Dartmouth who turned out both rich and poor,
and also those of Preston and around that eastern shore.

Now, to conclude and make amend of this, my mournful song.
I pray you will forgive me, for writing it so long.
That I another theme like this may never have to pen,
this is my first and I hope my last,
God grant it so, amen.
This song is sung a cappella. The last line of the song, God grant it so, amen , is spoken, not sung.

**Sources**

This recording was sung almost exactly as it appeared in Manny's book with very little variation.

1958
006-02

The song appears in Louise Manny and James Reginald Wilson eds. Songs of Miramichi Brunswick Press Fredericton, N.B. pg. 130.

The original author is disputed, but from at least 1932, versions were collected around the Maritimes and Maine. See some additional info and sources here.