1. 

In our morris-dance rehearsals

we look proper mangel-wurzels -

or that is what ye think as oi’ve been told.

On our scrumpy, mead and perry,

we shall dance to make ye merry,

and bring to ye our mutton from the fold.

In our Devon cream we’ll bake ‘em,

with some Cheddar cheese and bacon;

and none of ye that eat shall feel the cold.

2. 

Ye can wander over downland,

where there’s sheep, then on to townland,

where ye’ll visit Castle Combe - that rhymes with Frome.

There be birchwoods up in Berkshire,

there be beechwoods down in Hampshire,

while Shearwater and Sturton are abloom.

From the Quantocks to the Cotswolds,

there be trout streams, there be pot-holes,

there be gorges, there be barley, there be broom.

3. 

We had temples by the dozen

when the Roman were our foemen.

Look at Avebury, or Stonehenge - they be there.

In our Camelot was pageantry

that filled the world with legendry;

with Arthur, there were always food to spare.

And it’s here lie Viking robbers

that our Alfred proper clobbered,

and England were the empire of his heirs.

4. 

Well the age of our ill omen

come with William and his Normen,

when Harold, Earl of Wessex, he were slain.

But at Oxford we found learnin’,

then martyrdom, and burnin’,

which showed to us that learnin’ be a pain.

And at Glastonbury our abbey

were treated proper shabby,

when the Tudors put religion down the drain.

5. 

But the boats of Drake and Hawkins

set the foreigners a’squawkin’,

and saved the throne of England from a dive.

The praise of Walter Raleigh

were sung throughout our valleys,

till the Stuarts wouldn’t let him stay alive.

And when Monmouth dropped the banner,

we was hanged at two a tanner,

and there wasn’t very many that survived.

6. 

Yet the nobles were a’ buildin’

at Longleat, and at Wilton,

while Bristol had its merchants by the score.

And when folk were feelin’ funny,

they’d to Bath to spend their money,

for its waters could be cleansing to the core.

Then our poet, Thomas Hardy,

decided we was tardy

in claiming to be Wessexmen no more.

7. 

We have colleges and castles,

and cathedrals that one passes

in the cities where our history was made.

There be Salisbury and Winchester,

and Eton and Old Windsor,

which royalty has brightened from its shade.

There be Exeter and Taunton,

there be Gloucester and Southampton,

and a dozen other places make the grade.

8. In Bournemouth, they be white men,

in Bristol, there be black men,

while in Warminster, it’s green men that will come.

We’re a proper racial mixture,

and we never want its fixture;

we’ll evolve until the rainbow be outdone.

But we bain’t be in a hurry,

and as long as ye will tarry,

we’ll morris-dance until we’ve bed the sun.