Well, it’s always we ramble, that river and I,
All along your green valley I’ll work till I die,
My land I’ll defend with my life, if it be,’Cause my pastures of plenty must always be free.

These lines voice a speaker’s intimate bond with a river and the surrounding “green valley,” using the shared act of rambling as a metaphor for a life lived in motion, labor, and witness. The vow to “work till I die” and to defend the land “with my life” frames the landscape not as private property but as a commons whose abundance (“pastures of plenty”) must remain “free.” In Guthrie’s idiom, this kind of pastoral patriotism often doubles as social critique: love of country is measured by stewardship, solidarity, and resistance to enclosure or exploitation. The river becomes both companion and emblem of continuity, linking personal history to collective rights.