Silver Net

Words & music: © Richard Gendall. Arrangement: Brenda Wootton. “Carillon” album, Transatlantic Records TRA360;1979

Oh, would there were the sea from Rame to Marsland

And Tamar were as wide, as wide can be,

And Cornwall were some island in the ocean,

A refuge in this ever-changing sea…

If I had got the strength to lead an army

Or the wit to argue well and win the day

I would place a silver net about my country

And let her children take their own again.

 

Oh, could you see the future of our country

As plainly as the glass reveals it me,

And could you see the ‘crowdy crawn’ lay empty,

Well might you weep for things that used to be…

For the voices by the harbour of an evening,

And the cry that calls the cattle from the hill,

They seem to have an unfamiliar ringing

That strikes into my heart an icy chill.

 

These lanes our feet have cut across the ages,

These quilted fields we’ve stitched since came the farm,

These houses and these harbours and these churches,

These ‘stone on stone’, the country’s face that charm,

No longer are there Cornish feet to tread them

Or Cornish hands to tend and trim and clean.

They’ve sold the motherland that bore and bred them,

And wandered far away from Cornwall’s green.

 

Oh, would there were the sea from Rame to Marsland

And Tamar were as wide as wide can be,

And Cornwall were some island in the ocean,

A refuge in this ever-changing sea,

If I had got the strength to lead an army

Or the wit to argue well and win the day

I would place a silver net about my country

And let her children take their own again.

 

Suie Ellery-Hill Aug 2020