To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time

by Robert Herrick

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
And, while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.

Less Like Scars

by Sara Groves

It's been a hard year
But I'm climbing out of the rubble
These lessons are hard
Healing changes are subtle

But every day it's
Less like tearing, more like building
Less like captive, more like willing
Less like breakdown, more like surrender
Less like haunting, more like remember

And I feel you here
And you're picking up the pieces
Forever faithful
It seemed out of my hands, a bad situation
But you are able
And in your hands the pain and hurt
Look less like scars and more like character

Less like a prison, more like my room
It's less like a casket, more like a womb
Less like dying, more like transcending
Less like fear, less like an ending

Just a little while ago
I couldn't feel the power or the hope
I couldn't cope, I couldn't feel a thing
Just a little while back
I was desperate, broken, laid out
Hoping you would come

And I need you
And I want you here
And I feel you

And I know you're here
And you're picking up the pieces
Forever faithful
It seemed out of my hands, a bad situation
But you are able
And in your hands the pain and hurt
Look less like scars
And more like character

Spots of Time

by Warren Haynes

Spots of time flash before my eyes
Like ribbons of light
Helplessly I try to touch them
Before they disappear into the night

Running fearlessly as in a dream
Headlong into the wind
Cool night air, blowing through our hair
Moonlight dancing on your skin

Do you remember
How young we were, or is it just me?
Imagining like I always do
When we were once wild and free

Young man yearning for days gone by
Innocence once removed
Familiar feeling of a front porch swing
And a song: always soothes

Spots of time like windows appear
You can look out or in
But you can't get to the future I regret
Without going through the past, my friend

A mother's tears, a sparrow's wing
A lover's eyes softly glistening
Memories that to me are everything
But to someone else maybe only ashes and dust

Tommy

by Rudyard Kipling

I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o' beer,
The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here."
The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:
O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";
But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play,
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play.

I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me;
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls,
But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the stalls!
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, wait outside";
But it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide,
The troopship's on the tide, my boys, the troopship's on the tide,
O it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide.

Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap;
An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.
Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, 'ow's yer soul?"
But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll,
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll.

We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;
While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall be'ind",
But it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind,
There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,
O it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind.

You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all:
We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool — you bet that Tommy sees!

Wiser Time

by Chris Robinson

No time left now for shame
Horizon behind me, no more pain
Windswept stars blink and smile
Another song, another mile

You read the line every time
Ask me about crime in my mind
Ask me why another road song
Funny, but I bet you never left home

On a good day
I know it's not every day
We can part the sea

And on a bad day
I know it's not every day
Glory beyond our reach

Fourteen seconds until sunrise
Tired, but wiser for the time
Lightning 30 miles away
Three thousand more in two days

The Band Played Waltzing Matilda

by Eric Bogle

Now when I was a young man I carried my pack
And lived the free life of the rover
From the Murray's Green Basin to the dusty outback
I waltzed my Matilda all over
Then in 1915 my country said, 'Son
'It's time you stopped rambling, there's work to be done.'
So they gave me a tin hat and they gave me a gun
And they marched me away to the war

And the band played 'Waltzing Matilda'
As the ship pulled away from the quay
And amidst all the cheers, the flag waving, and tears
We sailed off for Gallipoli

And how well I remember that terrible day
How our blood stained the sand and the water
And of how in that hell that they called Souvla Bay
We were butchered like lambs at the slaughter
Johnny Turk, he was ready, he'd primed himself well
He showered us with bullets and he rained us with shell
And in five minutes flat he'd blown us all to hell
Nearly blew us right back to Australia

But the band played 'Waltzing Matilda'
When we stopped to bury our slain
We buried ours and the Turks buried theirs
Then we started all over again

And those that were left, well, we tried to survive
In that mad world of death, blood, and fire
And for ten weary weeks I kept myself alive
Though around me the corpses piled higher
Then a big Turkish shell knocked me arse-over-head
And when I woke up in my hospital bed
And saw what it had done, well, I wished I was dead
Never knew there was worse things than dying

For I'll go no more waltzing Matilda
All around the green bush far and free
To hump tent and pegs a man needs both legs
No more waltzing Matilda for me

So they gathered the crippled, the wounded, the maimed
And shipped us back home to Australia
The legless, the armless, the blind, the insane
Those proud wounded heroes of Souvla
And as our ship pulled into Circular Quay
I looked at the place where my legs used to be
And thanked Christ there was nobody waiting for me
To grieve, to mourn, and to pity

But the band played 'Waltzing Matilda'
As they carried us down the gangway
But nobody cheered, they just stood and stared
Then they turned all their faces away

So now every April I sit on my porch
And I watch the parade pass before me
I see my old comrades, how proudly they march
Reviving old dreams of past glories
And the old men march slowly, old bones stiff and sore
They're tired old heroes from a forgotten war
And the young people ask, 'What are they marching for?'
And I ask myself the same question

But the band plays 'Waltzing Matilda'
And the old men still answer the call
But as year follows year, more old men disappear
Some day no one will march there at all

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?
And their ghosts may be heard
As they march by that billabong
Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?

Do You Love Me?

by Sheldon Harnick

Golde, do you love me?
Do I what?
Do you love me?
Do I love you?
Well?

With our daughters getting married
And this trouble in the town
You're upset, you're worn-out
Go inside, go lie down
Maybe it's indigestion!

Golde, I'm asking you a question!
Do you love me?
You're a fool!
I know! But do you love me?
Do I love you?
Well?

For 25 years I've washed your clothes
Cooked your meals, cleaned your house
Given you children, milked your cow
After 25 years, why talk about love right now?

Golde, the first time I met you
Was on our wedding day
I was scared
I was shy
I was nervous
So was I

But my father and my mother
Said we'd learn to love each other
So now I'm asking, Golde

Do you love me?
I'm your wife!
I know! But do you love me?
Do I love him?
Well?

For 25 years I've lived with him
Fought with him, starved with him
25 years my bed is his
If that's not love, what is?

Then you love me!
I suppose I do
And I suppose I love you, too

It doesn't change a thing
But even so
After 25 years
It's nice to know

Siren Song

by James Wilson

Two-tone flannel for a soul
Broken hearts and rock & roll
Wrap it around you, keep you from the cold
Four lanes and gravel
Heart strings unravel
Chase them down until you're old

So you bust out the headlights
And you break up the dog-fight
Don't you know that it's all in your mind?
Taking up your burden
With your skin still burning
Dragging your life across the sands of time

And the faces, they all look the same
As they scream out your name

And your heart, it screams to belong
But we live and die as we dream all alone
And I heard those sirens singing on FM radio
Darling, they won't let me go

Attics of My Life

by Robert Hunter

In the attics of my life
Full of cloudy dreams unreal
Full of tastes no tongue can know
And lights no eye can see
        When there was no ear to hear
        You sang to me

I have spent my life
Seeking all that's still unsung
Bent my ear to hear the tune
And closed my eyes to see
        When there were no strings to play
        You played to me

In the book of love's own dream
Where all the print is blood
Where all the pages are my days
And all my lights grow old
        When I had no wings to fly
        You flew to me

You
flew
to me

In the secret space of dreams
Where I dreaming lay amazed
When the secrets all are told
And the petals all unfold
        When there was no dream of mine
        You dreamed of me

Fireflies and Songs

by Sara Groves

Thirty years ago I was a little child
Riding in the back seat of a car
A woman sang, 'You don't bring me flowers anymore'
I felt a sadness in my little heart

We're looking for the music
In the music box
Tearing it to pieces
Trying to find a song

I was drawn to you in ways I can't explain
I fought like crazy, but I couldn't stay away
Piled on expectations and lots of blame
Like we couldn't do it any other way

We're looking for a firefly
Moving through the night
Staring at that one place
Swear it never lights

Were you surprised our hearts were not like ticking clocks?
The faces and hands easy to read
We both wished, 'If only in the land of Oz'
And longed for things we'd never really need

Now we're standing in the kitchen
All pretense is gone
You kiss me on the shoulder
Fireflies and songs

My Back Pages

by Bob Dylan

Crimson flames tied through my ears
Rolling high and mighty traps
Pounced with fire on flaming roads
Using ideas as my maps
'We'll meet on edges, soon,' said I
Proud 'neath heated brow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now

Half-cracked prejudice leaped forth
'Rip down all hate,' I screamed
Lies that life is black and white
Spoke from my skull, I dreamed
Romantic facts of musketeers
Foundationed deep, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now

Girls' faces formed the forward path
From phony jealousy
To memorizing politics
Of ancient history
Flung down by corpse evangelists
Unthought of, thought, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now

A self-ordained professor's tongue
Too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty
Is just equality in school
'Equality,' I spoke the word
As if a wedding vow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now

In a soldier's stance, I aimed my hand
At the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not that I'd become my enemy
In the instant that I preach
My existence led by confusion boats
Mutiny from stern to bow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now

Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats
Too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking
I had something to protect
'Good and bad', I define these terms
Quite clear, no doubt, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now

East Coker (Pt. V)

[Pt. IV here]
by T.S. Eliot

So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years—
Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l'entre deux guerres
Trying to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate—but there is no competition—
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.

Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
There is a time for the evening under starlight,
A time for the evening under lamplight
(The evening with the photograph album).
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.
Old men ought to be explorers
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.

[The Dry Salvages]

I've Been Delivered

by Jakob Dylan

I could break free from the wood of a coffin if I need
But nothing's as hard as getting free
From places I've already been
I've been waist-deep in the burning meadows of my mind
In the engine, in cold December
Shooting fire from the hose

Now turn off your lights
'Cause I'm not coming home
Till I'm delivered for the first time

I was first-born to a parade that follows in rows
Down a narrow, cold black river
Faceless shadows moving slow
I would move swift when the sounds of a trumpet would blow
I've been the puppet, I've been the strings
I know the vacant face it brings

Now the bells of curfew
They may ring before I'm through
But soon I'll be delivered for the first time

You might keep clean in the back of an angel motorcade
It doesn't matter who walks in
You know, the joke is still the same
You'll just wake up like a disposable lover, decomposed
I've been gone, I've been remembered
I've been alive, I've been a ghost

So now if downtown explodes
I'll still be on this road
Till I'm delivered for the first time

I have drawn blood from the neckline when vampires were in fashion
You know I'd even learn to cut my throat
If I thought I could fit in
'Cause I once heard that you gotta learn how to blend in to this mess
Where nothing's hard, nothing's precious
And nothing's smooth or flawless

Now no more amused
Just screaming to
Be delivered for the first time

Now I'm 10 miles in the deep and mighty blue sea
Looking back, towards a long white beach
Burning up into yellow flames
And I just wave back like a little boy up on a pony in a show
'Cause I can't fix something this complex
Any more than I can build a rose

So just keep on letting go
'Cause I must be close
To being delivered for the first time

Now I'd rather bleed out a long stream from being lonely and feel blessed
Than drown, laying face down
In a puddle of respect
I was once lost in the corridors of the arena in blindfolds
I've been the bull, I've been the whip
I just pulled down the matador

So now, turn on your lights
'Cause I'm coming home
I've been delivered for the first time

If—

by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run –
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And – which is more – you'll be a Man my son!

When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)

by Brian Wilson

When I grow up to be a man

Will I dig the same things that turn me on as a kid?
Will I look back and say that I wish I hadn't done what I did?
Will I joke around and still dig those sounds?
When I grow up to be a man

Will I look for the same things in a woman that I dig in a girl?
Will I settle down fast, or will I first want to travel the world?
Well, I'm young and free, but how will it be?
When I grow up to be a man

Will my kids be proud or think their old man's really a square?
When they're out having fun, will I still want to have my share?
Will I love my wife for the rest of my life?
When I grow up to be a man

What will I be when I grow up to be a man?
Won't last forever
It's kind of sad

The Hollow Men

by T.S. Eliot

Mistah Kurtz—he dead.

                A penny for the Old Guy

I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer—

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
                                For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
                                Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
                                For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

All the Years

by Randall Goodgame

I've grown tired of all the years
I can feel my bones grinding down
I used to cage all my fears
But I've grown tired of all the years

I have sung a thousand simple songs
For all the world to sit and hear
Candle wax has frozen up the keys that go right here
And I've grown tired of all the years

Take me away, take me away, my love
Can you find me a road I've never known?
Take me away, take me away, my love
I'm tired, can you just take me home?

I waited spring and summer for your kiss
Now yellow leaves go laughing down the road
I've bet my love, and I had to pay
But I've grown tired of all the years

East Coker (Pt. II)

[Pt. I here]
by T.S. Eliot

What is the late November doing
With the disturbance of the spring
And creatures of the summer heat,
And snowdrops writhing under feet
And hollyhocks that aim too high
Red into grey and tumble down
Late roses filled with early snow?
Thunder rolled by the rolling stars
Simulates triumphal cars
Deployed in constellated wars
Scorpion fights against the Sun
Until the Sun and Moon go down
Comets weep and Leonids fly
Hunt the heavens and the plains
Whirled in a vortex that shall bring
The world to that destructive fire
Which burns before the ice-cap reigns.

That was a way of putting it—not very satisfactory:
A periphrastic study in a worn-out poetical fashion,
Leaving one still with the intolerable wrestle
With words and meanings. The poetry does not matter.
It was not (to start again) what one had expected.
What was to be the value of the long looked forward to,
Long hoped for calm, the autumnal serenity
And the wisdom of age? Had they deceived us
Or deceived themselves, the quiet-voiced elders,
Bequeathing us merely a receipt for deceit?
The serenity only a deliberate hebetude,
The wisdom only the knowledge of dead secrets
Useless in the darkness into which they peered
Or from which they turned their eyes. There is, it seems to us,
At best, only a limited value
In the knowledge derived from experience.
The knowledge imposes a pattern, and falsifies,
For the pattern is new in every moment
And every moment is a new and shocking
Valuation of all we have been. We are only undeceived
Of that which, deceiving, could no longer harm.
In the middle, not only in the middle of the way
But all the way, in a dark wood, in a bramble,
On the edge of a grimpen, where is no secure foothold,
And menaced by monsters, fancy lights,
Risking enchantment. Do not let me hear
Of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly,
Their fear of fear and frenzy, their fear of possession,
Of belonging to another, or to others, or to God.
The only wisdom we can hope to acquire
Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.

The houses are all gone under the sea.

The dancers are all gone under the hill.

[Pt. III here]

East Coker (Pt. I)

by T.S. Eliot

In my beginning is my end. In succession
Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,
Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place
Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.
Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires,
Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth
Which is already flesh, fur and faeces,
Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and leaf.
Houses live and die: there is a time for building
And a time for living and for generation
And a time for the wind to break the loosened pane
And to shake the wainscot where the field-mouse trots
And to shake the tattered arras woven with a silent motto.

In my beginning is my end. Now the light falls
Across the open field, leaving the deep lane
Shuttered with branches, dark in the afternoon,
Where you lean against a bank while a van passes,
And the deep lane insists on the direction
Into the village, in the electric heat
Hypnotised. In a warm haze the sultry light
Is absorbed, not refracted, by grey stone.
The dahlias sleep in the empty silence.
Wait for the early owl.

                                                 In that open field
If you do not come too close, if you do not come too close,
On a summer midnight, you can hear the music
Of the weak pipe and the little drum
And see them dancing around the bonfire
The association of man and woman
In daunsinge, signifying matrimonie—
A dignified and commodiois sacrament.
Two and two, necessarye coniunction,
Holding eche other by the hand or the arm
Whiche betokeneth concorde. Round and round the fire
Leaping through the flames, or joined in circles,
Rustically solemn or in rustic laughter
Lifting heavy feet in clumsy shoes,
Earth feet, loam feet, lifted in country mirth
Mirth of those long since under earth
Nourishing the corn. Keeping time,
Keeping the rhythm in their dancing
As in their living in the living seasons
The time of the seasons and the constellations
The time of milking and the time of harvest
The time of the coupling of man and woman
And that of beasts. Feet rising and falling.
Eating and drinking. Dung and death.

Dawn points, and another day
Prepares for heat and silence. Out at sea the dawn wind
Wrinkles and slides. I am here
Or there, or elsewhere. In my beginning.

[Pt. II here]

Long May You Run

by Neil Young

We've been through some things together
With trunks of memories still to come
We found things to do in stormy weather
Long may you run

Long may you run, long may you run
Although these changes have come
With your chrome heart shining in the sun
Long may you run

Well, it was back in Blind River in 1962
When I last saw you alive
But we missed that shift on the long decline
Long may you run

Maybe The Beach Boys have got you now
With those waves singing 'Caroline, No'
Rolling down that empty ocean road
Getting to the surf on time

Long may you run, long may you run
Although these changes have come
With your chrome heart shining in the sun
Long may you run