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autumn 1915 - lisa o'neill lyrics

[verse 1]
it may be on a quiet mountaintop
or in a valley folded among hills
you take your path, and often you will stop
to hear the pleasant chatter of the rills
the piping of a wind in branches green
the murmuring of widely*lifted spray
as long boughs swing
and hear the twittering
of drowsy birds when the great sun is seen
climbing the steep horizon to the day

the lovely moon trailing her silver dress
by quiet waters. each living star
moving apart in holy quietness
sphere over golden sphere moving afar
these i can see
and the unquiet zone
rolling in snow along the edge of sight
the world is very fair, and i am free
to see its beauty and to be
in solitude, and quite forget, and quite
lose out of memory all i have known
of everything but this

[verse 2]
straying apart in sad and mournful way
alone, or with my heart for company
keeping the tone of a dejected day
and a bewilderment that came to me
i said, “the spring
will never come again, and there is end
of everything”
day after day
the sap will ebb away from the great tree
and when the sap is gone
then piteously
she tumbles to the clay:
and we say only, “such a one
had pleasant shade, but there is end of her”
and you, and even you, the year
will drain and dry, and you will disappear
then to my heart there came so wild a stir
and such great pity and astonishment
and such a start of fear and woe had i
that where i went i did not know
and only this did know
that you could die

[verse 3]
i would have liked to sing from fuller throat
to you who sang so well, but here i stay
resting the music on a falling note
and hear it die away and die away
with beauty unrehe*rs*d, and life and love
unsung
for i had clung
with what of laughter and of eagerness
unto the hope that i might chance to be
the maker of a music nothing less
than those great poets of antiquity
who sang of clouds and winds, of hills and clods
of trees and streams, and of the mind of man
and chaunted too the universal gods
and their high guardianship since time began
and did not fail before a theme although
i passed the reason
[verse 4]
i heard a bird sing in the woods today
a failing song
the times had caught on him
in autumn boughs he tried a wonted lay
and was abashed to find his music grim
as the crow’s song
then, when i raised an air
to comfort him, i wretched was to hear
the crow did croak and chatter everywhere
inside my ear
and so, behold
i am a saddened elf
and, as a deer
flies timidly to shade
i fly to laughter and i hide myself
and couch me in the coverts that i made
against those bold ambitions, and forswear
the palm, the prize, or what instead of gear
a poet gets with his appointed share
of beer and bread

[verse 5]
upon the grass i drop this tuneful reed
and turn from it aside, and turn from more
that i had fancied to be mine indeed
beyond all reclamation. see the door
set in the boundary wall yawns windily
it will be shut when i have wandered through
and open will no more again for me
this side of life whatever thing i do
and so, good*bye, and so, goodnight to you
and farewell all. behold the lifted hand
and the long last look upon the view
and the last glimpse of that most lovely land
and thus away unto the mundane sphere
and look not back again nor turn anew
and hear no more that laughter at the ear
and sing no more for you

- lisa oneill lyrics

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