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The Vacant Chair

[ Roud 7714 ; Ballad Index R251 ; Bodleian Roud 7714 ; Wiltshire 514 ; DT VCNTCHAR ; Mudcat 18869 ; words Henry Stevenson Washburn (1813–1903)]

Steve Turner sang The Vacant Chair in 2023 on his Tradition Bearers album Curious Times. He noted:

During the American Civil War both sides were known to have sung this song. I found it in The Gam, the follow up to Songs the Whalemen Sang by Gale Huntingdon. It seems to have been discovered by the Bluegrass community who discarded this fine original air and put the words to the Union Miners tune. This version is from Martha’s Vineyard.

Lyrics

Steve Turner sings The Vacant Chair

We shall meet, but we shall miss him,
There will be a vacant chair.
We shall linger to remember
While we breathe the evening air;
When a year ago we gathered
Joy was in his mild blue eye,
But a golden chord is severed
And our hopes in ruins lie.

Chorus:
We shall meet, but we shall miss him,
There will be a vacant chair.
We shall linger to remember
While we breathe the evening air.

By our fireside, sad and lonely,
Often will the bosom swell,
In remembrance of the story
How our noble hero fell;
How he strove to bear our banner
In the thickest of the fight,
And uphold our country’s honour
With the strength of manhood’s might.

Now they tell us wreaths of glory
Shall forever deck his brow,
But this soothes the anguish only
Sweeping o’er our heartstrings now.
Sleep today, o early fallen,
In thy green and narrow bed,
While the leaves of pine and cypress
Mingle with the tears we shed.