Cuttings

 

They took a sprig from Hatfeild Hall

And planted it in Wakefield Gaol

A Mulberry bush grew on the spot

Its humble origins forgot

And there prisoners exercised at night

Beneath the pale Yorkshire moonlight

Round and round the tree they went

Those sinners who could not repent

 

Before that Mulberry tree had died

They took some cuttings to the outside

And planted them in the Merrie City

And still the children sing the ditty

Here we go round the Mulberry Bush

The Mulberry Bush The Mulberry Bush

They incantate that nursery song

Of misdirected lives gone wrong

 

And when those cuttings grow into trees

The plan is to take cuttings from these

And plant them back behind the walls

So once again the ghostly calls

Of prisoners and children who

Have danced in circles old and new

Will haunt the new-born branches, lush,

Once more around the Mulberry Bush