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Friday, 10 August 2012

The Singing Of England

Once upon a time, in a land far away, a young man dreamed a dream. He dared not to speak of this dream so wrote down the words in a song. From time to time during his life he glimpsed little scenes from this dream - cycling down a country road, hearing the birds sing at dawn, stumbling through an old tune on the squeezebox or maybe watching the joyous steps of the GogMagog Molly Dancers - and the dusty words of that song floated up into his mind for a while and waltzed in the sunlight..... 


The Singing Of England

Come you young men, come you girls of the springtime,
Come hand in hand across the green land
To greet this new day with the music of singing,
The valley so wide and the mountains so grand.

The troubles and fuss of the times we are born in
We'll lay to one side and let them pass by,
Crawl out from your sleeping bag on this bright morning
For the lark she is risen into the blue sky.

To the clattering and rattling of rusty old pushbikes,
To the plod of our walking boots as the day starts
With dust on our faces, who cares what we look like
The music of England will rise from our hearts.

There's mouth-organ music and melodious melodeons,
There's Tom the mad fiddler with never a care,
Little tin whistles and thumping great accordions
And best of all dancers with steps light as air.

Once long ago you well could have found us
All in the tall cities of England the green,
But now that we've seen all the beauty around us
With wide awake eyes we will sing out our dream.

The brambly briar and the wild rose of Albion,
Entangled, embracing in every hedgerow
Rejoicing, resplendent on King Arthur's Island,
Beside ancient highways we ramble and grow.



Take care.



6 comments:

  1. Lovely and what could be more fresh and beautiful than the wild rose.

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  2. That lifted my heart-thank you John. Jane xx

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  3. We have certainly been enjoying the songs of England for the last couple of weeks.

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  4. So nothing much has changed over the years, [the troubles and fuss of the times we are born in]. [We'll lay to one side and let them pass by], and dream of better days ahead. So the lovely pink flower is the wild rose of Albion? Beautiful verse and post John.

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  5. Very nice indeed. Happy Sunday.

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