The coldest winter in memory was 1709    The sea froze off the coast of France all along the Neptune line    By the lost town of Dunwich the shore was washed away    They say you hear the church bells still as they toll beneath the waves       Come all you earthly princes, wheresoever you may be    From the Sun King in the court of France to the Czar in Muscovy    Take heed of Charles of Sweden, the Lion of the North,    On the cracked earth of summer with his army he goes forth       Guardian angels wherever you may be,    reach down and keep my soul for me       I was there amongst that number, I heard the trumpets strain    I saw the host of banners spread across the Polish plain    Those who stood against us, they soon were swept away    They may have the numbers but it's Charles shall have the day       We cut our way through forests, crossed on frozen streams    They fell away before us like a murmur in a dream    And they burned the land around us as snow was closing in    And the arms of winter took us as we fired against the wind       Guardian angels wherever you may be,    reach down and keep my soul for me       Through all the courts of Europe there's a rumor from the East    The kings have come to battle and it's Charles who's known defeat    They'll shake their heads and wonder at how this came to be    But it's nights without a shelter that have made an end for me       Now Charles is fled to Turkey, left his men afar    And they'll be marched through Moscow now as prisoners of the Czar    And had I but known last summer what I know understand    I'd have never set my foot inside this bleak and bitter land       Guardian angels wherever you may be,    reach down and keep my soul for me       The coldest winter in memory was 1709    The sea froze off the coast of France all along the Neptune line    By the lost town of Dunwich the shore was washed away    They say you hear the church bells still as they toll beneath the waves