When once you dreamed, the streets and mountains,
Leaned against your eyes,
And you did see them as yourself turned out,
From what did team inside you,
The stream that carried you so swiftly,
Through that granite wall of dreams,
You drank from like an infant,
And it filled you in the instant,
And some kind of law of instinct,
Did propel you, so it seemed,
And in that realm your thoughts and senses,
You were fixed between,
And you did not believe,
You did not need to be believed,
When once you dreamed.
And it was not for this,
That it did be before your mettle,
'Cause your elbow was just resting,
And you wore no kind of armor,
You were thinking of pirates,
Who were docking in the harbor,
You were farming for the elements,
That were sprouting in the pasture,
When once you dreamed you needed not to leer or faces read,
And concealed no hidden feeling was of you or your esteem,
You did not weal (you did not dare) you did not deal for the dollar,
Like a sullen passerby without a saddle or a lover,
Or a ladder to the altitudes of prayer,
Where the water is not swimming like the semen,
And the weavils like the river of your squallor.
Here now dropped and the gun's gone off,
And you're hoofing but your lopsided lope is chopped,
And your looks are not of your age,
And your locks are frayed,
And your hopes do stray from your heart,
To dance and to dart by the old grave yard,
On the hill where the swell of the wind is still,
In the air and it hangs like the drape on a frame,
Whose lace is waning and whose crack is strange,
Like a bell whose ball is wasted away,
Whose toll won't tell the remains of the day.
And your face betrays your answer,
In the motion of your glances,
In the final lonely moments of mercy in the manger,
When the dangerous man is tallying his chances,
And rallying his captains who are carrying his lances,
To take the virgin field and the throng advances,
And it hurts me 'cause I feel that the song he chants,
Is wrong because it cancels the words that I cant,
And I try to sing but I can't and I paw,
And I pant and I rant and I rave and I fall,
To my death in a grave of the camp in the thaw.
What muse could you attempt to use today my lonely one,
Does your chosen motive stray, is your courage overcome,
Are you done in by strange numbers that do redirect your palm,
Do you crumble on the inside when you stumble through the dawn,
Are you stumbling on the ramparts in the umbridge of G-d,
Are you weary in your stomach are you lonely in your heart,
Does the numbing of your tongue leave you mumbling the tone,
Of the hundreds all around you who confound you with their drone,
What muse could you attempt to use today, my lonely one,
What muse could you attempt to use today to make you whole,
What must could you attempt to use today when there are none?
They are fleeing from the bombs and they are flying to the sun,
They are climbing to their homes in the highest mountain haunt,
Like a scattering of fishes and a gathering of fawns,
To the keys and the calls that will be in alms,
And the arms of the song of your dreams.