“One Night Sad and Languid (Dream of Napoleon)”

Description

"One night sad and languid I went to my bed... When a vision surprising came into my head... I beheld that rude rock... O'er the grave of the once-famed Napoleon." The singer recalls the deeds of Napoleon and how he was "sold... by treachery."

Supplemental text

One Night Sad and Languid (Dream of Napoleon)
  Complete text(s)

          *** A ***

From Huntington, Songs the Whalemen Sang, pp. 215-216. From the
1847 journal of the William Histed of the Cortes. Anne and Frank
Warner, in Traditional American Folk Songs from the Anne &
Frank Warner Collection, #143, p. 331, note a single stanza
collected from the singing of C. K. "Tink" Tillett of North
Carolina (collected 1940); the variants in this text are noted
after the Huntington text.

One night sad and languid I went to my bed
And had scarcely reclined on my pillow
When a vision surprising came into my head
And methought I was crossing the billow
I thought as my vessel sped over the deep
I beheld that rude rock that grows craggy and steep
Where the willow (the willow) is now seen to weep
O'er the grave of the once famed Napoleon

Methought as my vessel drew near to the land
I beheld clad in green his bold figure
With the trumpet of fame he had clasped in his hand
On his brow there shone valor and rigor
He says noble stranger you have ventured to me
From that land of your fathers who boast they are free
If so then a tale I will tell unto thee
'Tis concerning that once famed Napoleon

You remember the day so immortal he cried
When we crossed o'er the Alps famed in story
With the legions of France whose sons were my pride
As I marched them to honor and glory
On the fields of Marien lo I tyrany hurled
Where the banners of France were to me first unfurled
As a standard of liberty all over the world
And a signal of fame cried Napoleon

Like a hero I've borne both the heat and the cold
I have marched to the trumpet and cymbal
But by dark deeds of treachery I now have been sold
Though monarchs before me have trembled
Ye princes and rulers whose station ye bemean
Like scorpions ye spit forth venom and spleen
But liberty all over the world shall be seen
As I woke from my dream cried Napoleon

Variations found in the Warner/Tillett text of stanza 1:

1.1 One ] Oh, one  |  languid ] lonely  |  I went to me ] he lied on his
1.2 had scarcely reclined on my ] his head had declined on his
1.3 When ] Oh  |  my ] his
1.4 And methought I ] He thought he  |  billow ] billows
1.5 I thought as my vessel sped ] He dreamed as his vessel dashed
1.6 I ] he  |  that grows ] so
1.7 Where the willow (the willow) is now seen ] The place where the
                                                willows do now seem
1.8 of the ] of that

Broadsides

• Murray, Mu23-y1:056, "Dream of Napoleon," James Lindsay (Glasgow), 19C

References

1. Huntington-Whalemen, pp. 215-216, "One Night Sad and Languid" (1 text)
2. Warner 143, "Boney on the Isle of Saint Helena" (one fragmentary text in the notes to the song)
3. ST SWMS215 (Full)
4. Roud #1538
5. BI, SWMS215