> Danny Spooner > Songs > Homeward / Home Lads, Home

Homeward / Home Lads, Home

[ Roud - ; Cicely Fox Smith, tune Sarah Morgan]

Homeward is a poem from Cicely Fox Smith’s book Songs & Chanties, 1914-1916.

Bread and Roses sang Home Lads Home in 1988 on their eponymous Dragon album Bread and Roses. They noted, obviously not knowing of the authorship of Cicely Fox Smith then:

The original words to Home Lads Home were written by a Hampshire soldier during the First World War. Sarah [Morgan] found them in a magazine, edited them, and wrote a tune. The places mentioned are in Hampshire, just north-west of Portsmouth.

Cockersdale sang Home Lads, Home in the same year on their 1988 Fellside album Doin’ the Manch’. They too noted erroneously:

By now, almost a ‘folk classic’, the words were written by an anonymous Hampshire man serving in India during the First World War. Adaption and setting by Sarah Morgan of Winchester.

Home Lads, Home, set to music by Sarah Morgan, was sung by the cast in Mick Ryan’s 1995 show A Day’s Work, which tells the story of farm workers moved from the country to the front in the first world war and the death of one of their number shot as a conscientious objector. This recording was first released in 1996 as a WildGoose cassette and in 2014 as a CD. This track was also included in 2013 on Sarah Morgan’s posthumous WildGoose anthology Only Remembered.

Den Giddens sang Home Lads, Home in 2003 as the last track of his WildGoose album A Little Bit Off the Top. He noted:

Finally my favourite song it says it all and brings the odd tear to my eye. Thanks to Cicely Fox Smith for the poem and to Sarah Morgan for having the inspiration to put it to music.

Paul Sartin sang Home Lad, Home on Belshazzar’s Feast’s 2010 album Find the Lady. This track was also included in 2021 on their WildGoose anthology That’s All Folkies. A live recording from The Pound in Corsham, Wiltshire, in September 2013 was included in 2014 on their album The Whiting’s on the Wall. They noted on the first album:

Written by the poet Cicely Fox Smith, the text was first published as Homeward in 1916. Since then it has undergone a number of changes via the ‘folk process’, not least the addition of Sarah Morgan’s melody. Fox Smith was living in Hampshire when she penned the poem, more precisely in Chilbolton, which, like Whitchurch, and Sarah’s village of St Mary Bourne, is on the River Test.

This video shows Belshazzar’s Feast at Chester Folk Festival 2014:

GreenMatthews sang Home Lad, Home in 2014 on their album of songs of the Great War, The Men Who Marched Away.

Lyrics

Cicely Fox Smith’s poem Homeward

Behind a trench in Flanders the sun was dropping low,
With tramp, and creak and jingle I heard the gun-teams go;
And something seemed to ’mind me, a-dreaming as I lay,
Of my own old Hampshire village at the quiet end of day.

Brown thatch and gardens blooming with lily and with rose,
And the cool shining river so pleasant where he flows,
Wide fields of oats and barley, and elderflower like foam,
And the sky gold with sunset, and the horses going home!

(Home, lad, home, all among the corn and clover!
Home, lad, home when the time for work is over!
Oh there’s rest for horse and man when the longest day is done
And they go home together at setting of the sun!)

Old Captain, Prince and Blossom, I see them all so plain,
With tasseled ear-caps nodding along the leafy lane,
There’s a bird somewhere calling, and the swallow flying low,
And the lads sitting sideways, and singing as they go.

Well gone is many a lad now, and many a horse gone too,
Of all those lads and horses in those old fields I knew;
There’s Dick that died at Cuinchy and Prince beside the guns
On the red road of glory, a mile or two from Mons!

Dead lads and shadowy horses—I see them just the same,
I see them and I know them, and name them each by name,
Going down to shining waters when all the West’s a-glow,
And the lads sitting sideways and singing as they go.

(Home, lad, home … with the sunlight on their faces!
Home, lad, home … to those quiet happy places!
There’s rest for horse and man when the hardest fight is done,
And they go home together at setting of the sun!)

Paul Sartin sings Home Lad, Home

Behind a trench in Flanders the sun was dropping low,
With tramp and creak and jingle I heard the gun-teams go;
When something seemed to ’mind me, a-dreaming as I lay,
Of my own old Hampshire village at the quiet end of day.

Brown thatch with garden blooming with lily and with rose,
And the cool shining river so pleasant where he flows.
White fields of oats and barley, and elder flowers like foam,
And the sky all gold with sunset, and the horses going home.

Home lad, home, all among the corn and clover!
Home lad, home when the time for work is over!
Oh there’s rest for horse and man when the longest day is done,
And they all go home together at the setting of the sun!

Oh Captain, Prince and Blossom, I see them all so plain,
With tasselled ear-caps nodding along the leafy lane,
Somewhere a bird is calling, and the swallow’s flying low,
And the lads all sitting sideways and singing as they go.

Dead lads and shadowy horses, I see them just the same,
I see them and I know them, and name them each by name,
Going down to shining waters when all the west’s aglow,
And the lads all sitting sideways and singing as they go.

Home lad, home … with the sunlight on their faces!
Home lad, home … to the quiet happy places!
There’s rest for horse and man when the hardest fight is done,
And they all go home together at the setting of the sun!