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heavy horses |
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By jethro tull |
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Iron-clad feather-feet pounding the dust |
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On october's day, towards evening |
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Sweat embossed veins standing proud to the plough |
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Salt on a deep chest, seasoning |
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Last of the line at an honest day's toil |
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Turning the deep sod under |
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Flint at the fetlock, chasing the bone |
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Flies at the nostrils plunder. |
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The suffolk, the clydesdale, the percheron vie |
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With the shire on his feathers floating |
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Hauling soft timber into the dusk |
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To bed on a warm straw coating. |
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Heavy horses, move the land under me |
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Behind the plough gliding --- slipping and sliding free |
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Now you're down to the few |
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And there's no work to do |
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The tractor's on its way. |
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Let me find you a filly for your proud stallion seed |
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To keep the old line going. |
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And we'll stand you abreast at the back of the woods |
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Behind the young trees growing |
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To hide you from eyes that mock at your girth, |
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You're eighteen hands at the shoulder |
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And one day when the oil barons have all dripped dry |
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And the nights are seen to draw colder |
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They'll beg for your strength, your gentle power |
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Your noble grace and your bearing |
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And you'll strain once again to the sound of the gulls |
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In the wake of the deep plough, sharing. |
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Standing like tanks on the brow of the hill |
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Up into the cold wind facing |
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In stiff battle harness, chained to the world |
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Against the low sun racing |
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Bring me a wheel of oaken wood |
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A rein of polished leather |
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A heavy horse and a tumbling sky |
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Brewing heavy weather. |
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Bring a song for the evening |
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Clean brass to flash the dawn |
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Across these acres glistening |
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Like dew on a carpet lawn |
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In these dark towns folk lie sleeping |
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As the heavy horses thunder by |
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To wake the dying city |
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With the living horseman's cry |
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At once the old hands quicken --- |
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Bring pick and wisp and curry comb --- |
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Thrill to the sound of all |
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The heavy horses coming home. |
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Iron-clad feather-feet pounding the dust |
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On october's day, towards evening |
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Sweat embossed veins standing proud to the plough |
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Salt on a deep chest, seasoning |
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Bring me a wheel of oaken wood |
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A rein of polished leather |
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A heavy horse and a tumbling sky |
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Brewing heavy weather. |
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Heavy horses, move the land under me |
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Behind the plough gliding --- slipping and sliding free |
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Now you're down to the few |
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And there's no work to do |
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The tractor's on its way. |