The Long Mountain

 

The old track up the Long Mountain

Was sunk in the afternoon shade

Cool and green, earth heavy on the air

I stopped to rest on my spade

All day digging the culvert clear

The spring rains had filled with sand

Silent she passed through the woods behind me

Silent she touched my hand

 

You may be the hunter, You may be the prey

You may be lost for ever, And never find the way

You may be dreaming, You may be awake

You make your own choice of the path you take

 

She asked would I kindly walk with her

Along the way that lead up the hill

I left my shovel, my tin and my flask

I walked like I’d lost my will

She darted through the bushes and briars

Her hair caught the sun at each turning

As we burst from the woods and into the sunlight

We kissed like our bodies were burning

 

In the spring meadow up on the mountain

We made love in hot summer air

My eyes fixed hard on the blue Kerry Ridge

I reeled as I drowned in her hair

Then I lay on the grass close to sleeping

I asked her name and her home

With no words she placed her finger to my lips

Said 'I always hunt alone'

 

CHORUS

 

As the sun sank behind the pine tops

I heard a trapped fox cry in pain

With a whisper ’goodbye’ I turned she was gone

No trace in the grass where she’s lain

Though I searched all the mountain into the night

The high meadows, the dark evening trees

No trace of the girl was there to be found

Just the sound of that cry in the breeze

 

With aching limbs I walked from the mountain

To Hopesgate as dawn unfurled

In the churchyard a sexton was digging a grave

I asked if he knew of the red headed girl

He sighed as he sat on a grave mound

Said 'you’ll mean the young keeper’s wife

Came here to marry from over the mountain

Left him a cold bitter life'

 

CHORUS

 

'You’d see her at every shoot and supper

Her red hair would sway as she danced

Til she was danced away by a fine young soldier

Then he died on the fields of France

She ran like a fox when she heard the news

Howling up there in the trees

Torn by the branches and tripped by the roots

She ran til her eyes could no longer see

 

The covers are no place to be after dark

The thicket’s so tough you can’t turn

The keepers lay snares and shoot without warning

The tracks take a lifetime to learn'

He said 'she’s lain here these last ten years'

And he wiped his hands on his cap

'They found her weeks later up in the covers

Caught like a fox in a trap'

 

You may be the hunter, You may be the prey

You may be lost for ever, And never find the way

You may be dreaming, You may be awake

You make your own choice of the path you take

 

 

There is a lane up the Long Mountain which Annie had long wanted to explore in late spring when it is a near paradise of wild flowers. This song comes from a visit we made there in June 1997.

This song also owes something to the Shropshire novelist Mary Webb, who made my county briefly fashionable in the 1920s.