Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Single drop of rain


Highwayman


I was a highwayman. Along the coach roads I did ride

With sword and pistol by my side

Many a young maid lost her baubles to my trade

Many a soldier shed his lifeblood on my blade

The bastards hung me in the spring of twenty-five

But I am still alive.


I was a sailor. I was born upon the tide

And with the sea I did abide.

I sailed a schooner round the Horn to Mexico

I went aloft and furled the mainsail in a blow

And when the yards broke off they said that I got killed

But I am living still.


I was a dam builder. Across the river deep and wide.

Where steel and water did collide

A place called Boulder on the wild Colorado

I slipped and fell into the wet concrete below

They buried me in that great tomb that knows no sound

But I am still around..I'll always be around..and around and around and

around and around


I fly a starship across the Universe divide

And when I reach the other side

I'll find a place to rest my spirit if I can

Perhaps I may become a highwayman again

Or I may simply be a single drop of rain

But I will remain

And I'll be back again, and again and again and again and again..

9 comments:

  1. Dude, don't freak me out with such a drastic template change. I'm the only one allowed to do that. ;-p

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  2. I think I prefer the other highwayman, even if he did gallop away to the west.

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  3. I think I liked the Traveling Wilburys better.

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  4. @Angelika - Well, then don't freak me out by showing up without glasses and your cap of many colors. I'm so glad you are safe after your accident on the ice. Slow down.

    @A. - Sigh. Oh, well, if you insist. "And still of a winter's night, they say, when the wind is in the trees, when the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas; when the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor, a highwayman comes riding, riding, riding - a highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn door. Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs in the dark inn yard; He taps with his whip on the shutters, but all is locked and barred; He whistles a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there? - but Bess the landlord's daughter, the landlords black-eyed daughter, plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair."

    Don't make me look it up. And don't make corrections. :)

    @Descartes - I like the Wilburys too, but they didn't sing these words. Ah, I see, now. Ok, I liked the Texas Tornadoes better.

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  5. I was only going 35 before that accident. Had I been going my usual 55 on that road it would have been much worse & I wouldn't have been able to blog about it!

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  6. I see. Well, you still ended up in the ditch and being rescued by a silver fox lawman. So slow down.

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  7. I love that poem, the Highwayman.

    My mother had an album of a little known group called the Three D's who took poetry and put it to music. "Songs" I remember (fondly) include The Highwayman, Charge of the Light Brigade, and Annabelle Lee. I'd never seen the first poem before (though I was familiar with the other two) and had to find it.

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  8. @Stephanie Barr- That sounds pretty cool, to put poetry to song. But I guess that happens a lot with religious music at least. But not to famous poems that I've heard.

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