The Shrell cock will be singing now
   Down Slattery Lane.
Before the clock has struck dawns cheerless hour
   In wind and rain

Scarce can he wait until the coming day
   Has chased the night
Before his spate of melody impatiently
   Foretells the coming light

Above the meadow land where Pow beck floods
   It's winding way
And Ash trees stand along the valley edge
   In close array

Here, in my childhood days
   I first recall
Hearing across the flood his wild cadenza
   Rise and fall

High on his swaying perch above the lane
   I hold so dear
His ever racing tempo wild enslaved
   My listening ear

In Wild Locharbars glens where berried Rowans grow
   I've heard him too
And where the Spean swirls beneath the bridge at Roy
   His voice I knew

Here where tall Beeches grow on chalky Downs
   I hear him now
Or where the hedgrows mark the patterned Weald
   Beneath their brow

From Elbourne house where long dead fires
   Of Lime kilns used to glow
His echoing voice rebounds from Chancton Downs
   To wake the glebe below

It wakens too from deep within my memories store
   Where it has lain
As though asleep. The song I heard in childhood
   Rise and soar
Down Stattery Lane