| Our history runs down our rivers
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| Down our rivers to the sea
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| Reminds us of the things that matter
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| Home and heart and history
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| And all our sins will be forgiven
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| Washed away to set us free
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| By the rivers that run through our homesteads
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| By myth and modal melody
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| I traced these rivers from the cities to the sea
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| To remind me of what I already know
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| I traced the shorelines through a thousand estuaries
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| To remind me an island is my home
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| An island is my home
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| I’ve travelled far across this country
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| Northumberland to Southern Downs
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| I wandered up the rolling Humber
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| And down the Thames to London town
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| And countless lives were lived and lingered
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| In the Cotswolds and the Fells
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| I left a tapestry called England
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| Of life and those who lived it well
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| I traced these rivers from the cities to the sea
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| To remind me of what I already know
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| I traced the shorelines through a thousand estuaries
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| To remind me an island is my home
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| An island is my home
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| An island is my home
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| Round here the sky is a little closer
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| A little closer to the ground
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| It’s hard for someone to get lost here
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| Harder still to get found
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| And though I’ve seen a thousand rivers
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| From the Mississippi to the Rhine
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| The only place that I’ll lay my hat down
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| Is by an English riverside
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| I traced these rivers from the cities to the sea
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| To remind me of what I already know
|
| I traced the shorelines through a thousand estuaries
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| To remind me an island is my home
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| An island is my home
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| An island is my home
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| So place your trust into the sea
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| It’s kept us safe for centuries
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| It shaped our shores and steadily
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| Its care has brought us calm
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| And when I die, I hope to be buried out in English seas
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| So all that then remains of me
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| Will lap against these shores
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| Until England is no more |