By Dave Boulton & Jeff Parton
Download lyrics sheet with chords
I watched the sheep grazing out over the hills on a patchwork of yellow and green
Saw the barns and the byres, the homesteads and farms, and the miles of stone wall in between
From the valleys they sweep to the skyline, from the mountains run down to the sea
And I wondered who’d given a lifetime of labour and what kind of men they had been
CHORUS:
Men with the will to move mountains
Men made of frail flesh and bone
Who fashioned cathedrals and bridges and fountains
From the cold and the unyielding stone
With granite for stable foundations
And marble from far away lands
And know-how passed down from all ages and nations
To men with the skill in their hands
New light telling old stained glass stories as it falls on the altar and aisles
Singing the praises and gilding the glories of high vaulted ceilings and mosaic tiles
Each stone cut and placed with precision, each mortice and joint made to last
By men with conviction and faith in the future from lessons they’d learned in the past
Who were the men brought the coal from the ground, who smelted the iron and steel
Who sweated and slaved in the forge and the foundry, who tempered and quenched and annealed
And when Stevenson, Brunell and Brindley came up with their projects and schemes
Who created the locks and the bridges and dams from the engineers’ visions and dreams
Where are the smiths and the masons, oh where have the craftsmen all gone
What do we leave to the new generations, what do we have to pass on to our sons
Crumbling concrete and plaster, plastic and paint left to peel
Not a stone wall or spire, not a belfry or byre, just a world full of smoked glass and steel
© 1999 His Worship & the Pig