Go Little Swale

Go, lowly Swale, go headlong down
Down through your stony-faced meadows
Your scowling hills, your crouching towns
Go, little Swale, and I follow

The taciturn hill farmers patiently still
Are pacing their hillside
The po-faced sheep stare as they go
The pinafored women go day after day
Making their hay
Down by the river edge where wagtails are trotting
By Booze, by Muker, by Gunnerside, by Crackpot

Go, little Swale, go headlong down
Down through your stony-faced meadows
Your scowling hills, your crouching towns
Go, little Swale, and I follow

The children are learning to leave you behind
Old men have time to stare at the dead afternoons
The up-country bus takes them slowly but surely
Over the moorside
Over the poor bridges that hunch there all crook-back
By Thwaite, by Grinton, by Healaugh, by Buttertubs

Go, little Swale, go headlong down
Down through your stony-faced meadows
Your scowling hills, your crouching towns
Go, little Swale, and I follow

Go, lowly Swale, go headlong down
Down through your stony-faced meadows
Your scowling hills, your crouching towns
Go, little Swale, and I follow