Wake Up John (Hanging Song) Fairport Convention

Wake up John, it's time to go
Come along John, don’t be slow
Wake up John, it's time to go

A priest joins the procession just to help me kneel
With a warder at my elbow and another at my heel
Marching in the morning down a path I've lately seen
I was sleeping in this garden, am I still within my dream?
The echo of my heartbeat is the beating of a drum
And all the earth is singing with life’s sweet hum
We filed in solemn silence, shuffled through a door
The place where life is taken for the lettеr of the law

Shake the holy watеr, summon up the guard
Dying's very easy, waiting's very hard

A rope was hanging from the roof, a sight which puzzles me
I thought a gibbet and a guard would make a gallows tree
But now all is revealed, standing there is just a man
My feet are on the trapdoor with a rope around my hand
And now the executioner is shaking hands with me
"My duty I must carry out, you poor fellow," says he
A strap is tied around my feet and a bag upon my head
And then the noose which separates the living from the dead

Shake the holy water, summon up the guard
Dying's very easy, waiting's very hard