June Tabor

I rode out on a bright May morning
Like a hero in a song
Looking for a place called England
Trying to find where I belong

Couldn't find the old flood meadow
Or the house that I once knew
No trace of the little river
Or the garden where I grew

I saw town and I saw country
Motorway and sink estate
Rich man in his rolling acres
Poor man still outside the gate

Retail park and burger kingdom
Prairie field and factory farm
Run by men who think that England's
Only a place to park their car

But as the train pulled from the station
Through the wastelands of despair
From the corner of my eye
A brightness filled the filthy air

Someone's grown a patch of sunflowers
Though the soil is sooty black
Marigolds and a few tomatoes
Right beside the railway track

Down behind the terraced houses
In between the concrete towers
Compost heaps and scarlet runners
Secret gardens full of flowers

Rita grows her scented roses
Right beneath the big jet's path
Bid of fortune for her garden
Eileen turns away and laughs

So rise up George and wake up Arthur
Time to rouse out from your sleep
Deck the halls with sea-green ribbons
Drag the old sword from the deep

Hold the line for Dave and Daniel
As they tunnel through the clay
While the oak in all its glory
Soaks up sun for one more day

And come all you at home with freedom
Whatever the land that gave you birth
There's room for you both root and branch
As long as you love the English earth

Room for vole and room for orchid
Room for all to grow and thrive
Just less room for the fat landowner
On his arse in his four-wheel drive

For England is not flag or Empire
It is not money it is not blood
It's limestone gorge and granite fell
It's Weald and clay and Severn mud

It's blackbird singing from the may-tree
Lark ascending through the scales
Robin watching from his spade
And English earth beneath your nails

So here's two cheers for a place called England
Sore abused but not yet dead
A Mr. Harding sort of England
Hanging in there by a thread

Here's two cheers for the crazy Diggers
Now their hour has come around
We shall plant the seed they saved us
Common wealth and common ground

We were traveling north to sing and play
For friends that we had never met
Been working hard and didn't speak
The sky was grey and threatened wet
And I dreamed that I saw unicorns
Dreamed I saw them wild and white
their sudden beauty lit the world
Like a star will light a winter's night

Pure as love with manes of milk
They danced and pranced and cried aloud
Bright as rainbows round the stars
Their eyes were soft and sad and proud

And I wept for the wild and dirty world
To which this beauty now was lost
And cursed the hungry mind of man
That feeds the future at such cost
My head was bowed, my eyes were closed
When in my ears their voices rang
And these few words lodged deep inside
And in my very soul they sang

We never went away
You always knew that we were near
Remember how to look for us
You'll see we were always here

I raised my eyes to seek them out
The world was empty all around
The rain came tumbling from the sky
It drowned all dreams upon the ground
And when they asked me why I wept
Like one who for his dead love mourns
The only answer I could give
I dreamed that there were unicorns
We never went away
You always knew that we were near
Remember how to look for us
You'll see we were always here