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03 Aug 20 - 05:22 PM (#4067169) Subject: Lyr Add: Hills of Coromandel (Dave Jordan) From: Joe Offer Interesting song sung at the Singaround by Jack Penman of New Zealand: HILLS OF COROMANDEL (Dave Jordan) The trees grow ancient green and tall as they have always done there And press together over all to shield the earth from sun there. Seedlings spread young trees grow old old ones fall and turn to mould Till bush returns to hills once clear and man it seems, was never there And the apple trees still bloom each year on the hills . . . of Coromandel It was the gold that brought the men when thousands here did rally Their secret shattered shafts remain abandoned in the valley Roads they fashioned in the clay overgrown or washed away And fences built by settlers' hands are gone restoring broken lands And a rusted gateway lonely stands on the hills . . . of Coromandel Those days of gold are past and gone with the men who took their chances The bush is slowly marching on in a silence no-one answers Birds call out to empty air No one comes there's nothing there But a gate that's open to nowhere and names on sandstone faint but clear And the apple trees that bloom each year in the hills . . . of Coromandel |
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03 Aug 20 - 06:28 PM (#4067182) Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Hills of Coromandel (Dave Jordan) From: Joe Offer http://folksong.org.nz/hillsofc/ |
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03 Aug 20 - 06:53 PM (#4067186) Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Hills of Coromandel (Dave Jordan) From: Jack Campin Nice. I wonder if there's a Google map reference for the exact place? I've only been to the southern bit of Coromandel, which is nondescript hilly sheep country, no old mine workings. NZ literature does that sort of nostalgia very well. The classic is Denis Glover's "Arawata Bill" poem cycle, which you might summarize as being about the discovery of nature through chasing the delusion of gold. |