The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #99032   Message #1980170
Posted By: Herga Kitty
26-Feb-07 - 04:26 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Songs about Rabbits
Subject: Lyr Add: TRACKS IN THE SNOW (Steve Thomason)
If hares are allowed, Steve Thomason's song, "Tracks in the snow" inspired by an arctic hare in the Peak District.

TRACKS IN THE SNOW  Steve Thomason

All the events in this song happened, even the sighting of a red kite which possibly came over to the Peak District from Wales. The hare was one of the arctic hares that had been introduced onto Kinder. Every winter it turned white and would be feeding in the 15 acre field as we came home to walk the ΒΌ mile down the track towards the glow of the farm lights, visible in the valley even though the farm itself was hidden.

Chorus - Walk with me down hidden paths
White hare in the field, trout in the stream
Walk with me down hidden paths,
To the land that is now just a dream.

I remember the paths I walked with my dog,
Over high heather moors, past the cotton grass bog,
Heard the lark on the wing and the curlew's lone call,
Heard the grouse cry "Come back" over Matley Moor wall.

In the spring I would sit with my back at the Rocks,
Looking down o'er the field where I watched the hares box,
Saw the vole in the stream, red kite in the sky,
Never thinking those days they would pass by and by.

With the swaling long done and the heather shoots grown,
And the bilberry fruit on the banks near my home,
And haymaking done and the dusk folding round,
We'd watch as the owls hunted mice o'er the ground.

And Autumn comes round and the grey clouds roll in,
There's a blanket of mist hides the high moorland rim,
As you walk through the fields and the rain turns to sleet,
And the whole of your world is the ground at your feet.

With the winter comes snow and the fields turn as white,
As the coat of the hare that was waiting each night,
As we walked down the track to the lights of the farm,
With their promise of comfort, fire and warmth.

But those days are long gone and the ground at our feet,
Is concrete and metal on the hurrying street,
And tractor and link box are lost long ago,
But I still see the tracks of white hare in the snow.