THAT's what I was looking for, Artful Codger. "When lanes in autumn rains are red" makes a lot more sense. Thanks a lot. Let's put together a fully corrected transcription:

Original Belloc Version:

DRINKING SONG
(Hilaire Belloc)

On Sussex hills where I was bred,
When lanes in autumn rains are red,
When Arun tumbles in his bed,
And busy great gusts go by;
When branch is bare in Burton Glen
And Bury Hill is a whitening, then,
I drink strong ale with gentlemen;
Which nobody can deny, deny,
Deny, deny deny, deny.
Which nobody can deny.

In half-November off I go,
To push my face against the snow,
And watch the winds wherever they blow,
Because my heart is high:
Till I settle me down in Steyning to sing
Of the women I met in my wandering,
And of all that I mean to do in the spring,
Which nobody can deny, deny,
Deny, deny deny, deny.
Which nobody can deny.

Then times be rude and weather be rough,
And ways be foul and fortune tough;
We are of the stout South Country stuff,
That never can have good ale enough,
And do this chorus cry!
From Crowboro' Top to Ditchling Down,
From Hurstpierpoint to Arundel town,
The girls are plump and the ale is brown;
Which nobody can deny, deny,
Deny, deny deny, deny.
If he does he tells a lie!


Lyrics and tune from The Four Men: A Farrago, by Hilaire Belloc, 1911
Originally untitled.

Also set by Martyn Wyndham-Read to the fine Irish rebel tune "The West's Awake" On Wyndham-Read's "Rose from the Bush" and also by Ian Robb on the Finest Kind CD, "Lost in a Song".

@drink
filename[ SUSSDRNK
AJS
oct97

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Oh, and I combined the earlier thread with this one.
-Joe-