The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #7247   Message #2313436
Posted By: GUEST,Julie Mingo
11-Apr-08 - 10:46 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Spider's Web (Girl Scout song)
Subject: ADD Version: Birthright
I'm thrilled to find this site in general and in particular the words I was missing to "Birthright"! But of the words I did remember, neither version here is exactly as I learned it:

Birthright

We who were born in country places,
Far from the city and shifting faces,
We have a birthright no man can sell,
And a secret joy no man can tell.

For we are kindred to lordly things,
Wild duck's flight and the white owl's wings
Two, pike and salmon, three, bull and horse,
Curlew's cry and the smell of gorse.

Bridle traces, swiftness of streams,
Magic of frost has shaped our dreams,
No baser vision the spirit thrills,
Than to walk by night on the naked hills.

We sang it as a round at GS Camp Narrin in Ortonville, Michigan in the 1960's. The area around the camp was farmland then, but suburbia had encroached by the time I was a GS leader in the 1990's.