Gordon Bok – These Dry Stone Walls (Guitar)

                         G
These miles of dry stone walls

     C                       D                    Em
That hold, in ploughed brown fields, these kingly halls

                         G        C
The dead of centuries in hills of sand

                Bm
The stones that bind them

    Am       D                Em
Are proud as what lies behind them

                  G        C               Am    B7   Em
And varied as the counties in this curious land

                   G
In Cumberland they built them

   C                 D         Em
On hills that surely must have killed them

                      G               C
Through broom and juniper and stunted ling

                  Bm
Two thousand feet over

     Am        D        Em
With just a tarpaulin cover

                 G                 C              Am      B7   Em
They crouched in wind and rain and waited for the spring

                 G
In Aberdeenshire valley

    C                D    Em
The fields were only open quarry

                                G       C
The stones were gathered up and made to stand

               Bm
But with every ploughing

      Am           D                  Em
You'd think it was stones they'd been sowing

               G                C          Am     B7   Em
The walls grew sadder here than any in the land

                   G
The Irish built in courses

          C          D       Em
Of single stones the size of horses

                             G       C
Of glacial boulders, without edge or face

                 Bm
But if you could view them

 Am        D            Em
Above, the sun lighting through them

                G                   C              Am     B7   Em
You'd swear the hills were edged in broken granite rays

                     G
When Pict and Viking took

      C               D           Em
Stone pages from some prehistoric book

                        G      C
A sandy flagstone under Orkney hills

                  Bm
Hailing there the while

    Am           D      Em
And left history in the islands

             G               C               Am     B7   Em
This is what water, wind and time and toil reveal

                 G
From Yorkshire's limestone hills

        C                 D        Em
Through Derbyshire to the coast of Wales

                               G     C
From Shetland's salty rocks to Devon lane

                 Bm
Just look and discover

    Am         D                 Em
Two walls that lean against each other

             G           C                   Am    B7   Em
You'll never see them in quite the same way again

                         G
These miles of dry stone walls

     C                       D                    Em
That hold, in ploughed brown fields, these kingly halls

                         G        C
The dead of centuries in hills of sand

                Bm
The stones that bind them

    Am       D                Em
Are proud as what lies behind them

                  G        C               Am    B7   Em
And varied as the counties in this curious land