The Carpenter’s Daughter

She’s lived all her life by the sea and the strand
And knowing the cliffs like the palm of her hand
The carpenter’s daughter has learned to read stones
To unlock their secrets and find the old bones

Now scholarly gentlemen visit the town
To call on Miss Anning, she has such renown
Beating a path to her humble front door
And bidding her take them down onto the shore

She sells seashells on the seashore

So off to the Undercliff, hammers in hand
To search the Blue Lias they’re bound
The limestone she shows them bears fossils in plenty
And Mary explains what they’ve found
And Mary explains what they’ve found

Freely she gives of the knowledge they covet
And rarely receives an acknowledgement of it.
How could a gentleman scholar admit
That a carpenter’s daughter has helped him one bit?

She sells seashells on the seashore

I didn’t choose to be born as a maid
Nor you to be born as a man
When God made me female He gave me this mind
These two eyes, these two ears and these hands

Now what should I do with these gifts I possess,
Shut my eyes, close my ears, drop my hands?
The parable says not to squander our talents
Am I to ignore this command?
Am I to ignore this command?

The carpenter’s daughter has learned to read stones
To unlock their secrets and find the old bones
Now eminent gentlemen visit the town
To call upon Mary, she has such renown.