The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #156340   Message #3686640
Posted By: Sandra in Sydney
17-Dec-14 - 06:50 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: ballad paying homage to horses??
Subject: Lyr Add: HORSES OF THE WORLD (John Warner)
Tangledwood mentioned John Warner's Horses of the World so I got the words from his former singing partner Margaret Walters as they are not on his website

part of the trilogy - Horses of the World by John Warner - from his CD The Sea & The Soil. John's CDS are available from his website

HORSES OF THE WORLD
(John Warner © 1991)

And I want to say a word of thanks to the horses of the world
Whose solid backs and heaving lungs have placed us where we stand
Their eyes speak for their spirits that through the endless years
Have shaped us all, as we shaped the fruitful land
Such gentle souls that shaped the fruitful land

And I saw a fertile valley where a back and heavy soil
Promised golden grain and fruit upon the bough
And sweating giant Clydesdales thrust their shoulders at the toil
And loam rolled back, like the sea, behind the plough

And a thousand lowing cattle spread out on the western plain
And the thunder spoke from out the roaring cloud
But the stockmen rode to calm the herd through squalls of lashing hail
On their rough-haired walers, agile, strong and proud

So I'll keep an apple by me when I lean upon a fence
Where a palamino or some chestnut mare might graze
A present from a passer-by to one fine child of earth
Whose hoofprints pioneered our present ways

And I want to say a word of thanks to the horses of the world
Whose solid backs and heaving lungs have placed us where we stand
Their eyes speak for their spirits that through the endless years
Have shaped us all, as we shaped the fruitful land
Such gentle souls that shaped the fruitful land