On the blue-green rising, falling tide

Breathing in the pebbles

Sighing out the salt breeze

Chaff is blowing from the stubble fields

Leaving the dried earth land it threads the gate

Tunnel hedges

Old man's beard

Sticking to the wild plums

Old man's beard

And follows the pot-holed tracks

That lead to Shaletown

The ox-man's soul forever turns around

And ploughs the stubble field

Caught in the lonely mile

Between the roads to Shaletown

He watches the chaff leave his dry brown eye

And swing over rose-hip stile

To Shaletown

Under bronze-red sunset, cobweb clouds

Dipping to the shadows

Dancing through the dead trees

Over carts that struggle up the hills

Sticking into the sweat and blistered hands

Nailed sacks flap