"Lady Franklin's Lament" (a.k.a. "Lord Franklin" "The Sailor's Dream") (Roud

Roud Folk Song Index

The Roud Folk Song Index is a database of 300,000 references to over 21,600 songs that have been collected from oral tradition in the English language from all over the world...

 487) (Laws K9) is a broadside

Broadside (music)

A broadside is a single sheet of cheap paper printed on one side, often with a ballad, rhyme, news and sometimes with woodcut illustrations...

 ballad indexed by George Malcolm Laws

George Malcolm Laws

George Malcolm Laws Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is a scholar of traditional UK and US folk song.His name is normally rendered as "G Malcolm Laws jnr". He is best known for "American Balladry from British Broadsides", published in 1957 by the American Folklore Society. He graduated from the...

 commemorating the loss of Sir John Franklin

John Franklin

Rear-Admiral Sir John Franklin KCH FRGS RN was a British Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer. Franklin also served as governor of Tasmania for several years. In his last expedition, he disappeared while attempting to chart and navigate a section of the Northwest Passage in the Canadian Arctic...

's British Arctic Expedition of 1845

Franklin's lost expedition

Franklin's lost expedition was a doomed British voyage of Arctic exploration led by Captain Sir John Franklin that departed England in 1845. A Royal Navy officer and experienced explorer, Franklin had served on three previous Arctic expeditions, the latter two as commanding officer...

. It may have been published as a broadside as early as 1852 , allegedly written by Jane Griffin (Lady Franklin), Sir John's widow.

It has been recorded by numerous artists, including Martin Carthy

Martin Carthy

Martin Carthy MBE is an English folk singer and guitarist who has remained one of the most influential figures in British traditional music, inspiring contemporaries such as Bob Dylan and Paul Simon and later artists such as Richard Thompson since he emerged as a young musician in the early days...

, John Renbourn

John Renbourn

John Renbourn is an English guitarist and songwriter. He is possibly best known for his collaboration with guitarist Bert Jansch as well as his work with the folk group Pentangle, although he maintained a solo career before, during and after that band's existence .While most commonly labelled a...

, Mícheál Ó Domhnaill

Mícheál Ó Domhnaill

Mícheál Ó Domhnaill was an Irish singer, guitarist, and composer, who was a major influence on Irish traditional music in the second half of the twentieth century...

, Pentangle

Pentangle (band)

Pentangle are a British folk rock band with some folk jazz influences. The original band were active in the late 1960s and early 1970s and a later version has been active since the early 1980s...

, John Martyn

John Martyn

John Martyn, OBE , born Iain David McGeachy, was a British singer-songwriter and guitarist. Over a forty-year career he released twenty studio albums, working with artists such as Eric Clapton and David Gilmour...

, Sinéad O'Connor

Sinéad O'Connor

Sinéad Marie Bernadette O'Connor is an Irish singer-songwriter. She rose to fame in the late 1980s with her debut album The Lion and the Cobra and achieved worldwide success in 1990 with a cover of the song "Nothing Compares 2 U"....

, Pearlfishers

Pearlfishers

Pearlfishers are a Glasgow-based rock band fronted by singer and songwriter David Scott.Other contributors include drummer Jim Gash, Dee Bahl, Brian McAlpine, Mil Stricevic and Duglas T...

, Connie Dover

Connie Dover

Connie Dover is an American singer-songwriter who primarily writes and performs Celtic music and American folk music. Born in Arkansas and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, she started her career playing bluegrass before joining Celtic band Scartaglen in the early 1980s...

, Nic Jones

Nic Jones

Nicolas Paul "Nic" Jones is an English folk singer, fingerstyle guitarist and fiddle player whose professional career spanned the years 1964-1982. He recorded five solo albums, and was a frequent guest performer.-Biography:...

, as well as the Duncan McFarlane Band, where the chorus of "Northwest Passage

Northwest Passage (song)

"Northwest Passage" is one of the best-known songs by Canadian musician Stan Rogers. An a cappella song, it features Rogers alone singing the verses, with several guest vocalists harmonizing with him in the chorus...

" is added to the end. The version by Micheál Ó'Domhnaill and Kevin Burke is very well known in Ireland and appears on the album "Promenade." The melody is the traditional air 'Cailín Óg a Stór

Cailín Óg a Stór

Cailín Óg a Stór is a traditional Irish melody, originally accepted for publication in March of 1582. It may be the source of Pistol's cryptic line in Henry V, "Calen O custure". It is part of a broadside collection from 1584...

', and it was also used for Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...

's song "Bob Dylan's Dream

Bob Dylan's Dream

"Bob Dylan's Dream" is a song written by Bob Dylan in 1963. It was recorded by Dylan on April 24, 1963, and was released by Columbia Records a month later on the album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan....

" (which also borrows lyrical ideas from Lady Franklin's Lament), as well as David Wilcox

David Wilcox (American musician)

David Patrick Wilcox is an American folk musician and singer-songwriter guitarist. He has been active in the music business since the late 1980s.-Career:...

's "Jamie's Secret". The first verse is also used in "I'm Already There" by Fairport Convention

Fairport Convention

Fairport Convention are an English folk rock and later electric folk band, formed in 1967 who are still recording and touring today. They are widely regarded as the most important single group in the English folk rock movement...

The phrase "ten thousand pounds" alludes to the reward for successfully traversing the Northwest Passage

Northwest Passage

The Northwest Passage is a sea route through the Arctic Ocean, along the northern coast of North America via waterways amidst the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans...

, and mirrors the phrase "a thousand pounds" in The Croppy Boy

The Croppy Boy

"The Croppy Boy" is an Irish ballad set in 1798 rising and is one of the saddest ballads of the rebellion, relating the despair of a doomed young "croppy" or rebel.-Broadside versions:...

, set to the same tune.

Lyrics

(Traditional)

(To the tune of "The Croppy Boy

The Croppy Boy

"The Croppy Boy" is an Irish ballad set in 1798 rising and is one of the saddest ballads of the rebellion, relating the despair of a doomed young "croppy" or rebel.-Broadside versions:...

")
We were homeward bound one night on the deep

Swinging in my hammock I fell asleep

I dreamed a dream and I thought it true

Concerning Franklin and his gallant crew

With a hundred seamen he sailed away

To the frozen ocean in the month of May

To seek a passage around the pole

Where we poor sailors do sometimes go.

Through cruel hardships they vainly strove

Their ships on mountains of ice were drove

Only the Eskimo with his skin canoe

Was the only one that ever came through

In Baffin's Bay where the whale fish blow

The fate of Franklin no man may know

The fate of Franklin no tongue can tell

Lord Franklin alone with his sailors do dwell

And now my burden it gives me pain

For my long-lost Franklin I would cross the main

Ten thousand pounds I would freely give

To know on earth, that my Franklin do live.

(alternate: To know Lord Franklin and where he is.)