Esteesee from Esteesee by Ange Hardy

‘Matthew, Mark, Luke and John’ (or ‘The Black Paternoster’) is a childhood prayer that is catalogued as Roud Folk Song number 1704.

The Roud Folk Song Index is a database compiled by Steve Roud, a former librarian from the London Borough of Croydon. Until early 2006 the index was available only by a CD subscription; it can now be found online on a website maintained by EFDSS, the English Folk Dance and Song Society.

In a letter to Thomas Poole in 1797 Coleridge wrote: “This prayer I said nightly, and most firmly believed the truth of it. Frequently have I (half-awake and half-asleep, my body diseased and fevered by my imagination), seen armies of ugly things bursting in upon me, and these four angels keeping them off.”

Tracklist

12.	Esteesee	3:11

Lyrics

Four angels are here for my keeping
Stand Matthew, Mark, Luke and John
How I pray for a weak Esteesee
God bless the bed I lie on.

All in awe as the floor falls beneath me
Stand demons and ghosts at my door
How I pray for God’s angels to keep me
God bless the bed I lie on.

I am bound for my horrors and weeping
For my servitude barren and poor
How I pray God have mercy for grieving
God bless the bed I lie on.

Four corners to my bed,
Four angels round my head;
One to watch and one to pray
Two to bear my soul away.

Four corners to my bed,
Four angels round my head;
One to watch and one to pray
Two to bear my soul away.

Four angels are here for my keeping
Stand Matthew Mark Luke and John
How I pray for a weak Esteesee
God bless the bed I lie on.

Credits

from Esteesee, released September 24, 2015
On the album: Ange Hardy (vocals & harp), Patsy Reid (fiddle, viola & cello), Lukas Drinkwater (double bass), Jonny Dyer (piano) and Andrew Pearce (drums).

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