Sugar Magnolia

by Robert Hunter

Sugar magnolia blossoms blooming
Head's all empty and I don't care
Saw my baby down by the river
Knew she'd have to come up soon for air

Sweet blossom come on under the willow
We can have high times if you'll abide
We can discover the wonders of nature
Rolling in the rushes down by the riverside

She's got everything delightful
She's got everything I need
Takes the wheel when I'm seeing double
Pays my ticket when I speed

She come skimming through rays of violet
She can wade in a drop of dew
She don't come and I don't follow
Waits backstage while I sing to you

She can dance a Cajun rhythm
Jump like a Willys in four-wheel drive
She's a summer love in the spring, fall and winter
She can make happy any man alive

Sugar Magnolia
Ringing that blue bell
Caught up in sunlight
Go on out singing
I'll walk you in the sunshine
Come on honey, come along with me

She's got everything delightful
She's got everything I need
A breeze in the pines in the summer night moonlight
Crazy in the sunlight, yes indeed

Sometimes when the cuckoo's crying
When the moon is halfway down
Sometimes when the night is dying
I take me out and I wander 'round
I wander 'round

Sunshine daydream
Walking in the tall trees
Going where the wind goes
Blooming like a red rose
Breathing more freely
Light out singing
I'll walk you in the morning sunshine
Sunshine daydream
Walk you in the sunshine

I See the Rain

by Junior Campbell

Beautiful day, I'd like to lie on the green lawn
The ducks are congregating round, round the lily pond
And the cows have all gone
Running home to put their coats on

Stay indoors
While it pours
Till tomorrow

I see the rain again
I must complain again
Why does the rain let me down?
Will you try to make it sunny in the morning?

Five to ten, now it's time for the weather
The sun will shine and, in its time, get better
But it won't last for long
Clouds are spreading over London town

Hung Up on a Dream

by Rod Argent

Well I remember yesterday
Just drifting slowly through a crowded street
With neon darkness shimmering through the haze
A sea of faces rippling in the heat

And from that nameless changing crowd
A sweet vibration seemed to fill the air
I stood astounded, staring hard
At men with flowers resting in their hair

A sweet confusion filled my mind
Until I woke up only finding
Everything was just a dream
A dream unusual of its kind
That gave me peace and blew my mind
And now I'm hung up on a dream

They spoke with soft persuading words
About a living creed of gentle love
And turned me on to sounds unheard
And showed me strangest clouded sights above

Which gently touched my aching mind
And soothed the wonderings of my troubled brain
Sometimes I think I'll never find
Such purity and peace of mind again

Rejection

by Franz Kafka

When I meet a pretty girl and beg her: 'Be so good as to come with me,' and she walks past without a word, this is what she means to say:

'You are no Duke with a famous name, no broad American with a Red Indian figure, level, brooding eyes and a skin tempered by the air of the prairies and the rivers that flow through them, you have never journeyed to the seven seas and voyaged on them wherever they may be, I don't know where, so why, pray, should a pretty girl like myself go with you?'

'You forget that no automobile swings you through the street in long thrusts; I see no gentlemen escorting you in a close half-circle, pressing on your skirts from behind and murmuring blessings on your head; your breasts are well laced into your bodice, but your thighs and hips make up for that restraint; you are wearing a taffeta dress with a pleated skirt such as delighted all of us last autumn, and yet you smile — inviting mortal danger — from time to time.'

'Yes, we are both in the right, and lest we become irrefutably conscious of it, we wish — isn't it true? — to instead go each to our own home.'

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]

Christ the Lord Is Risen Today

by Charles Wesley

Christ, the Lord, is risen today,
Sons of men and angels say,
Raise your joys and triumphs high,
Sing, ye heavens, and earth, reply,

Love’s redeeming work is done,
Fought the fight, the battle won,
Lo! the Sun’s eclipse is over,
Lo! He sets in blood no more,

Vain the stone, the watch, the seal,
Christ hath burst the gates of hell,
Death in vain forbids His rise,
Christ hath opened paradise,

Lives again our glorious King,
Where, O death, is now thy sting?
Once He died our souls to save,
Where thy victory, O grave?

Soar we now where Christ hath led,
Following our exalted Head,
Made like Him, like Him we rise,
Ours the cross, the grave, the skies,

Hail, the Lord of earth and Heaven,
Praise to Thee by both be given,
Thee we greet triumphant now,
Hail, the resurrection, thou,

King of glory, Soul of bliss,
Everlasting life is this,
Thee to know, Thy power to prove,
Thus to sing and thus to love,

Hymns of praise then let us sing,
Unto Christ, our heavenly King,
Who endured the cross and grave,
Sinners to redeem and save.

But the pains that He endured,
Our salvation have procured,
Now above the sky He’s King,
Where the angels ever sing.

Jesus Christ is risen today,
Our triumphant holy day,
Who did once upon the cross,
Suffer to redeem our loss.

When I Survey the Wondrous Cross

by Isaac Watts

When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
Save in the death of Christ my God!
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to His blood.

See from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down!
Did e'er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?

His dying crimson, like a robe,
Spreads o'er His body on the tree;
Then I am dead to all the globe,
And all the globe is dead to me.

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.