[The Song of the Dead, Part II] The Song of the Dead is a dramatic piece made of four quite distinct poems but cast into two parts. The first reads like a recitation; the second is a reflective piece to be read quietly to oneself but followed by the third, a song heard on the wind. The fourth sings like many well-worn sea-ballads of Nelson's era. The tune is Bellamy's own but totally traditional in character. Vocals: John Roberts; Concertina: John Roberts
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We have fed our sea for a thousand years
And she calls us, still unfed,
Though there's never a wave of all her waves
But marks our English dead:
We have strawed our best to the weed's unrest,
To the shark and the sheering gull.
If blood be the price of admiralty,
Lord God, we ha' paid in full!
There's never a flood goes shoreward now
But lifts a keel we manned;
There's never an ebb goes seaward now
But drops our dead on the sand-
But slinks our dead on the sands forlore,
From the Ducies to the Swin.
If blood be the price of admiralty,
If blood be the price of admiralty,
Lord God, we ha' paid it in!
We must feed our sea for a thousand years,
For that is our doom and pride,
As it was when they sailed with the Golden Hind,
Or the wreck that struck last tide-
Or the wreck that lies on the spouting reef
Where the ghastly blue-lights flare
If blood be the price of admiralty,
If blood be the price of admiralty,
If blood be the price of admiralty,
Lord God, we ha' bought it fair!
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