The Dear Green Place

It was by the clear Moledinar Burn
 Where it meets and runs with the River Clyde,
 And they tell the tale of the holy one
 Who was fishing down by the riverside.
 A holy man, from Fife he came,
 His name, they say, was Kentigern,
 And by the spot where the fish was caught
 The Dear Green Place was born.
 Now the salmon ran through the river stream,
 And they salted them by the banks o' Clyde,
 And the faces glowed as the silver flowed,
 And the Place arose by the riverside.
 There was cloth to dye and hose to buy
 The traders came from all around
 And they raised a glass to the Dear Green Place,
 The place that was a town.
 *There is a town that once was green,
 And the river flowed to the sea.
 The river flows forever on,
 But the Dear Green Place is gone.*
 When the furnaces came to fire the iron,
 And the folk were thrown from the farmland,
 Then the Irishman, and the Highland man,
 And the hungry man came with willing hands.
 They wanted work, a place to live,
 Their empty bellies needed filled,
 And the farmyard was another world
 From the dirty, overcrowded mill.
 Now, you may have heard of the foreign trade,
 And fortunes made by the tobacco lords,
 But the working man slaved his life away
 And an early grave was his sole reward.
 A dreary room, a crowded slum,
 Disease and hunger everywhere,
 And the price to pay was another day
 To fight the anger and despair.
 *There is a town that once was green,
 And the river flowed to the sea.
 The river flows forever on,
 But the Dear Green Place is gone.*
 A thousand years have been here and gone
 Since Kentigern saw the Banks of Clyde.
 How many dreams and how many tears
 In a thousand years of a city's life.
 A city hard, a city proud,
 And no mean city it has been.
 Perhaps tomorrow it yet may be
 The Dear Green Place again.
 There is a town that once was green,
 And the river flowed to the sea.
 The river flows forever on,
 But the Dear Green Place is gone.