Download the full ballad, for free, as a PDF here: The Ballad Of Stokes Croft
On these fields of rural land
I heard a trav’lin band play
for the outcasts b’yond the walls of the city.
They sang at St. James’ fayre
and, as I listened there,
I saw our past and future vividly.
As progress surely arrived,
cultures lived and died, weaving into
a place that healed itself and, from within,
it forged community
of art and dignity,
nurtured’s the roots of grass that grows again.
So,
oh wash away
we few who sing today;
we who sit and, here, the past recall.
We’ll remember what unfolds,
and, ‘til the story’s told,
we’ll be watchin’ from these auld graffitied walls.
william altoft 