Hymns My Parents Sang [Song]

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HYMNS MY PARENTS SANG
By Mighty Chalkdust

My father, Isaac Liverpool, and my mother, Edwellyn Bartholomew, used to sing many songs and sankeys so often that I learned them all:

A little more oil in the lamp keep it burning
A little more oil in the lamp I pray
A little more oil in the lamp keep it burning
Keep it burning till the break of day

And when he walked home from the garden with all his peas and his corn, under the stress and load of the day, oh, he would sing and there was I listening to him. And hear him:

I am a warrior out in the field
And I can sing and I can shout
And I can tell it all about that Jesus died for me
When I get over yonder in that happy paradise,
When I get over yonder in the field.

And on a Sunday morning we would walk to my aunt in Bethel and when she would be making her pea soup and she would be singing while the pea soup boiling. Oh, what sweet voices between my father and herself, while I yearned for the pea soup and she sang:

How sweet the Name of Jesus sounds in a believer’s ear!
It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds and drives away his fear.
It makes the wounded spirit whole and calms the troubled breast;
’Tis manna to the hungry soul and to the weary, rest.

And before he went to bed at nights and he said his prayer, he must sing even though he sang a very long prayer, he gave God thanks for the day in this manner:

I must have the Savior with me for I dare not walk alone,
I must feel His presence near me and His arm around me thrown.
Then my soul shall fear no ill, let Him lead me where He will,
I will go without a murmur and His footsteps follow still.

Oh, he suffered from high blood pressure. When the nausea took him, the giddiness, he never gave up. He even gave God thanks for the illness, singing all the time:

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
O what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of love,
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.

This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior, all the day long;
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior, all the day long.

But my mother was a Catholic and when he sang his Baptist hymns and sankeys, she would counter him with a Catholic hymn as though she was trying to shut him up. But she sang with a beautiful and sweet voice and she sang:

O come to the throne of grace, O come to the heart most pure!
To Mary, our hope of life, in whom salvation is sure.

O Lady of Fatima, hail! Immaculate Mother of grace;
O, pray for us, help us today, thou hope of the human race!

And when somebody in the village died or his good friends died, sometimes he didn't go to the funeral but he stayed home and he sang. He was at the funeral in spirit:

Shall we ever all meet again, shall we ever all meet again
On that grave Judgment morning when the book shall be opened
And the names shall be called, oh, how sad it will be
When I take my departure and I turn away from heaven
For not serving my Lord.

And when he had no money and he was depressed or he won nothing in the sweepstakes and poverty stared him in his face, oh, he turned to his God and he sang. Love lifted him:

I was sinking deep in sin, far from that peaceful shore,
Very deeply stained within, thinking to rise no more.
But the Master of the sea heard my despairing cry,
From the waters lifted me, now safe am I.

Love lifted me! Love lifted me!
When nothing else could help, Love lifted me!
Love lifted me! Love lifted me!
When nothing else could help, Love lifted me!

And on a Sunday evening all of us would come around the bed - concert time! Rupert, Vaughn, Euril, Jean, Cynthia - concert time! And my mother would teach us:

Soft as the voice of an angel breathing a lesson unheard
Hope with a gentle persuasion whispers a comforting word.
Wait, till the darkness is over, wait, till the tempest is done
Hope, for the sunshine tomorrow, after the darkness is gone.
Whispering hope, oh, how welcome thy voice
Making my heart in its sorrow rejoice.

And before we went to bed, in the darkness of night, cool night, my mother would teach us, as if it were a prayer, before we went to sleep:

In the evening by the moonlight,
You could hear us darkies singing,
In the evening by the moonlight,
You could hear the banjo ringing.
How the old folks would enjoy it,
They would sit all night and listen,
As we sang in the evening by the moonlight.

Source: The lyrics posted on this blog are often transcribed directly from performances. Although it is my intention to faithfully transcribe I do not get all the words and I have a knack for hearing the wrong thing. Please feel free to correct me or to fill in the words that I miss by dropping me a message via e-mail. I'd be forever grateful. Thanks in advance!
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A Note From The Gull

Thank you, Chalkdust, and eternal blessings to your parents and family! Man, this brought tears to my eyes because growing up this was also part of my family life - a song for every occasion, a prayer for every occasion, and if you could sing a song that was also a prayer, even better. The saying was, "When you sing, you pray twice." On this Sunday, especially this Sunday in this week, in this month of this year in my homeland, I will repeat the lines from "Whispering Hope" for ALL my countrymen:

"Wait, till the darkness is over, wait, till the tempest is done
Hope, for the sunshine tomorrow, after the darkness is gone."

I often feel overwhelmed by the news from home. I don't know what to think...well I do know what to think but I cannot reach any conclusions that bring me relief. At these times, I find myself returning to the basics and holding on to the fact that no situation, no government, no superpower is stronger than the hearts and hands of my people if they recognise a threat and move together to remove it. I wish for UNITY today.

Government of the people, work quickly to build TRUST. I am weary to my soul of being paranoid about people's motives and characters. There have been too many incidents where the perception that lingered was that you are strangers to the truth. No Opposition member should be derided or shouted down for asking questions. That is the job that they are being paid to do. Your job is to respond in an intelligent and dignified and truthful manner that will satisfy the public. It is your DUTY to guard and to increase the TRUST placed in you by that public. If the TRUST is weakened or lost, even the good that you try to do will be suspect and the public will be less willing to be your partner.

Where there is a lack of TRUST, suspicion will be rife. Suspicion => resentment => anxiety => fear => rage.

When you win TRUST, you will prevail. TRUST is the bedrock of national security, an honestly won trust that is, and not the fear-based trust of the national security state. I continue to locate my country within the wider world and I see the global trends and influences that populate and affect its environment and I strongly believe that many of these trends should be allowed no part in our nation-building.

Yesterday I posted the video of our children singing "Our Nation's Dawning." It was my latest attempt to share with my countrymen why we must keep the faith. Children are magic and as I looked at them, I sent a silent blessing out to all the caring parents who had prepared them for school on the day the video was filmed and on the countless other days of care since their births.

If we let our children express the innate gifts with which they enter this world, they will in fact be our nation's dawning:

"Come, come away, hail to the day, WE are our land's great morning."

The problem is that we often keep them in a state of "the morning after the murky night before" by bequeathing to them our tiresome, menacing, crippling ISSUES until many of them are nipped in the bud and bruised and so are our chances for a better day. I wish for DISCONTINUITY. Let there be a way for us as individuals and as a nation to shed the hurts that cling to us, that have suffocated and infected us across generations.

I want to leave you with a song which I have always loved. If you have the privilege to influence a child in any way, even if only for a period of minutes in that child's life, as a taxi driver, a parent, a prime minister, an aunt, a teacher, a vendor of tamarind balls, a calypsonian, a priest, a police officer, a mailman, a leader of the opposition, just close your eyes and listen to the words:

Children will listen - Into the woods By Renee Maurice
How do you say to your child in the night
"Nothing’s all black, but then nothing’s all white?"
How do you say "It will all be all right."
When you know that it might not be true?
What do you do?

Careful the things you say, children will listen
Careful the things you do, children will see and learn
Children may not obey, but children will listen
Children will look to you for which way to turn
To learn what to be
Careful before you say, “Listen to me.”
Children will listen.

Careful the wish you make, wishes are children
Careful the path they take, wishes come true, not free
Careful the spell you cast, not just on children
Sometimes the spell may last past what you can see
And turn against you
Careful the tale you tell, that is the spell
Children will listen.

How can you say to a child who’s in flight,
“Don’t slip away and I won’t hold so tight.”
What can you say that no matter how slight won’t be misunderstood?
What do you leave to your child when you’re dead?
Only whatever you've put in its head
Things that your mother and father had said
Which were left to them too.

Careful what you say, children will listen
Careful you do it too, children will see and learn
Guide them then step away, children will glisten
Tamper with what is true and children will turn
If just to be free
Careful before you say, “Listen to me”

Children will listen, children will listen, children will listen.

"Patria est communis omnium parens" - Our native land is the common parent of us all. Keep it beautiful, make it even more so.

Blessed is all of creation
Blessed be my beautiful people
Blessed be the day of our awakening
Blessed is my country
Blessed are her patient hills.

Mweh ka allay!
Guanaguanare