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Whose is the hand that I will hold? |
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Whose is the face I will see? |
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Whose is the name that I will call |
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When I am called to meet thee? |
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In this life who did you love |
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Beneath the drifting ashes? |
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Beneath the sheeting banks of air |
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That barrenly bore our rations? |
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When I could speak it was too late |
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Didn't you hear me calling? |
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Didn't you see my heart leap like |
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A pup in the constant barley? |
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In this new life where did you crouch |
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When the sky had set to boiling? |
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Burnin' within; seen from without |
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And your gut was a serpent coiling |
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And for the sake of that pit o' snakes |
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For whom did you allay your shyness? |
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And spend all your mercy and madness and grace |
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In a day beneath the bending cypress? |
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It was not on principle |
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Show, pro-heart, that you have got gall |
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A miracle! |
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I can bear a lot but not that pall |
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I can bear a lot but not that pall |
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Kingfisher, sound the alarm |
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Say, 'sweet little darlin', now, come to my arms |
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Tell me all about the love you left on the farm' |
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He was a kind, unhurried man |
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With a heavy lip and a steady hand |
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But he loved me just like a little child, |
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A little child loves a little lamb |
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Thrown to the ground by something down there |
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Bitten by the bad air while the clouds tick |
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Trying to read all the signs |
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Preparing for when the bombs hit |
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Hung from the underbelly of the earth |
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While the stars skid away below |
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Gormless and brakeless, gravel-loose |
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Falling silent as gavels in the snow |
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I lay back and spit in my chaw |
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Wrapped in the long arm of the law |
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Who has seen it all |
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I can bear a lot but not that pall |
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I can bear a lot but not that pall |
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Kingfisher, cast your fly |
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O lord, it happens without even tryin' |
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When I sling a low look from my shuttering eye |
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Blows rain upon the one you loved |
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And though you were only sparring |
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There's blood on the eye, unlace the glove |
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Say, honey, I am not sorry |
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Stand here and name the one you loved |
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Beneath the drifting ashes |
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And in naming, rise above time |
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As it, flashing, passes |
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We came by the boatload |
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And were immobilised |
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Worshiping volcanoes |
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Charting the loping skies |
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The tides of the earth left |
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Us bound and calcified and made as |
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Obstinate as obsidian |
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Unmoving, save our eyes |
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Just mooning and blinking |
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From faces marked with coal |
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Ash cooling and shrinking |
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Cracks loud as thunder rollin', I swear |
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I know you; you know me |
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Where have we met before, tell me true? |
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To whose authority |
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Do you consign your soul? |
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I had a dream you came to me |
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Sayin', you shall not do me harm anymore |
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And with your knife you evicted my life |
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From its little lighthouse on the seashore |
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And I saw that my blood had no bounds |
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Spreading in a circle like an atom bomb |
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Soaking and felling everything in it's path |
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And welling in my heart like a birdbath |
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It is too short, the day we are born |
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We commence with our dying |
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Trying to serve with the heart of a child |
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Kingfisher lie with the lion |
