West Country Folksong:
Child's Verses for Winter from Poems of Cornwall and America by A.L. Rowse
Devon was white,
But Cornwall was green:
The prettiest sight
That ever was seen.
When Cornwall was copper
Devon was gold:
On moorland and hilltop,
Pasture and fold.
When Devon was purple
Cornwall was brown,
With harvesting bracken
On ledra and down.
When Cornwall was grey
With sea-mist and spume,
Devon was greenest
With apples in bloom.
Devon was shrouded
With snow on each thing,
But Cornwall was verdant
With promise of spring.
CLAY WAGONS
In St Austell town there were rivers of milk,
and down Watering Hill wet gobbets of clay
And they say that East Hill was as slipper as silk
As the great wagons rolled from the dries to the Bay
With their iron-shod wheels and stout timber frame,
From St Stephens, St Dennis, and Bugle they came.
Through St Austell town they clattered ans crawled,
And their drivers would shout as they passed in the street.
The women up-gathered their skirts when they called
For the clay wagaons spun the white dust round their feet.
And the great horses pulled their load out of town,
There were were six going up hill and three going down.
The dry men stopped work, and the kittley boys, too,
To watch as the wagons rolled out on the road
From Carbean, Greensplatt, Hallaze and Carthew,
Piled high with clay blocks, like a sugar-load.
Men, boys and horses were all stippled white -
Their grey, eerie faces as ghosts in half light.
In St Austell town the people were poor,
And the ways of commerce were solid and slow;
But the old clay wagons are seen now no more,
Or heard in the streets, So where did they go,
Crawling and weaving up hill, slow as snails?
They are linked like those horses, and speed on two rails.
Now the roads run clean, and the rivers flow clear,
And the bone-white hills bloom verdant and sweet;
But the Clay Cap'n bends his listening ear
For the comforting sound of those great horses' feet
As they pulled the clay wagons out of the town.
There were six going up hill, and three going down.
Burness Bunn
"ST AUSTELL"(Poem dated September 11th, 1917)
This busy grand old market town,
Close to the deep blue sea
With nature's beauty all around,
Hill, valley, dale and tree,
With its shops and daily traffic,
Still stands her Church and tower,
Pinnacled in finest beauty,
That sweetly chimes each hour.
With Charlestown's charming sandy beach,
The traders round the pier,
And the distant lovers strolling,
Upon the cliff-walk near.
A pretty greenlaid pleasure ground,
The see-saw, swing and seat,
Where one can pass a pleasant hour,
With some old friend you meet.
A way upon the breezy moorland,
Work many day by day,
In digging, loading, hauling,
This famous china clay.
Old Biscovery and Holmbush,
On Mountcharles' pleasant way,
With the dear old cottage garden,
All in the village gay.
Rustic Twewoon's homely village,
Quaint St. Mewan's shady lanes,
Where you hear the maiden singing,
As she cleans the window panes
Down in Pentewan's sweet valley,
Green wooded banks and nooks,
With the distant sea all rippling,
How lovely Porthpean looks.
