Click on arrow to hear the song performed by Derek B. Scott, Professor of Critical Musicology, University of Leeds, to his own piano accompaniment c. 1980. Professor Scott comments Kingsley was one of the founders of the Christian Socialist Movement in the UK. His poem "The Three Fishers," which testifies to his social concerns, was written in 1851. The line, "Men must work and women must weep," became a well-known catchphrase. The last lines of each stanza refer to the belief that it was a bad omen if the tide made a moaning sound as it receded over the sand bar that kept the harbor waters still.
Bibliography
Scott, Derek B. The Singing Bourgeois: Songs of the Victorian Drawing Room and Parlour. 2nd ed. Aldershot, Hampshire; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2001.
Last modified 10 September 2007