Alison O'Donnell

Hangover from Hell

Someone posts a fish in the mailbox
Along comes a recruit with work ethic intact
He held his nose and fished it out
Cursed his colleagues for all they lacked
It seems like every young one has a baby
For there's not a lot else to aspire to
Got to get away from hearth and home
'Cause there's not much there to live up to

Poor girl waiting four years for somewhere to live
Clutching straws and infant's limbs
She's closed her books and shut the doors
No chance of exchanging wedding rings
Hand on the bible and hand on heart
We can cross ourselves and hope to die
Even though our sin can be heinous
We swear we didn't do it and swear we didn't lie

Get me to the chapel get me to the temple get me to the shrine
Anywhere away from disappointment down the line
Give me holy water to douse this hangover from hell
I drank too much of everything in my quest to live life well

I see them all around me see it everywhere
Girls in first bud and boys in full bloom
Got so much going but they're going too far
They went too quickly they came too soon
Death-defying substances doled out at the door
Where the preacher used to reign supreme
Some city spots have gone to the dogs
But others are still every tourist's dream

Get me to the chapel get me to the temple get me to the shrine …

Get on the good roads and even if we must
Sometimes live too fast in the slow lane
And though big issues call to us
Perfect intentions are tough to maintain

Get me to the chapel get me to the temple get me to the shrine …

Alison O'Donnell & Isabel Ní Chuireáin Mise agus Ise 2006 MCPS/PRS

Mother of Pearl (and Invention)

Oh where are you now my beautiful mother mine?
In our bleached desert we await a cool green oasis
In our parched garden the rose will wither and die
Is that your perfect silhouette in the doorway?
Will you brush your powdered cheek against mine?
Oh where are you now my beautiful mother mine?

I recall the swish of heavy velvet and thick satins
You came for a while bringing chocolate and puzzles
The plants that you knew in English and also in Latin
Can you answer my letter to your box number
Or close the shutters when the night wind is rattling?
Oh where are you now my beautiful mother mine?

Won't you come along soon mother of pearl and invention
To take us to the fair in the playground of our dream?
I cannot soothe your brow my lost and lonely children
I am bound by brutal circumstance and cruel extreme

I relinquish my little ones les pauvres choux de mon coeur
I could not prevent the twists and turns of my fate
I hold their hands in my reverie but the rest is a blur
Their faces are faint through the glaze of my pane
They'll forget me when many times clocks whiz and whir
Oh where are you now my beautiful mother mine?

Won't you come along soon mother of pearl and invention
To paper over all your absence before it takes its toll?
I cannot fold you in my arms today or tomorrow
But I will bear you in my heart forever fused in my soul

Alison O'Donnell & Isabel Ní Chuireáin Mise agus Ise 2006 MCPS/PRS

In the Web

When first I stood against you
I had to stand my ground
If I'd shown a tender weakness
You would have struck me down
A line was carved upon the floor
Beyond which I could not tread
And if I dared to look askance
You'd file me with the dead
Never raise me from the dead

Stormy days and dreamy nights
Brought you boiling to the brink
Your glistening web of slow deceit
Forged strong and fallow links
I do not want to play your game
The stakes are steep and high
Come one day I will write you off
You all know the reason why
Know the reason why

There's no more fury there is only scorn
Count myself lucky I could walk away
Won't help this world that you were born
Won't let you cripple me today
What does your conscience have to say?

I am choking in this stuffy room
I need some fresher air
A fog descends with every day
This treatment's most unfair
You drowned me in a river
Tied a wreath around my neck
You hoped that I would float away
But you're the washed-up wreck
Washed up like a wreck

There's no more fury there is only scorn
Count myself lucky I could walk away
Won't help this world that you were born
Won't let you cripple me today
What does your conscience have to say?

And now I'm far removed from you
The web it weaves no more
I am out of this equation
You have shown yourself the door

Alison O'Donnell & Isabel Ní Chuireáin Mise agus Ise 2006 MCPS/PRS

Brave Face

If the postman comes knocking at my door
Put on a quick lick of paint
Can't open up without putting on a face
But he seems pleased I've gone to the trouble
Flushed with rouge but I feel pale and faint
Smear of lipstick but no colour at the core

And I do that for everyone
Brave face for everyone
And I do that for everyone
I've a brave face for everyone

I was like a hedgehog at that point in time
But I've been a Christmas tree angel
Prickly as pins and pine tree needles
I've an avalanche of news too bleak to report
So I'll probably lie low and not tell
All the bad stuff and just say I feel fine

I should talk to someone
But I can't really tell anyone
I should talk to someone
Somebody somebody anyone

I want to sink without trace for a while
Off the road full of dizzying bends
Become a recluse for a few precious weeks
Bury my head in cooling sand
I long to have reached the bitter end
Of many tomorrows that pass without a smile

I feel like I've turned into no one
Nobody nobody no one
I feel like I've turned into no one
Nobody nobody no one

But my life will be so different in ten years' time
My heart could be soft as a fruit inside
But still hard to the touch
I thank my good friends for expecting so much

And these dark days have come to pass
And I can save face for everyone
Open the door up for everyone
Put on a brave face as bold as brass

Alison O'Donnell & Isabel Ní Chuireáin Mise agus Ise 2006 MCPS/PRS

Seals in the Sound

My soul rises up with the morning
It rests in the depths of the night
And in between it embraces the pleasures
Sometimes twisted with woe beyond measure
And it swirls through Deilginis in the trail of a kite

I walked with my togs along Vico
I stood on the stones at White Rock
And I waded in cold murky shallows
Felt seaweed fronds flutter in the eddies and flows
And homewards I bounded without shoes or socks

Dip doo da doo dip doo da doo di dee di da da dum
Dip doo da doo dip doo da doo di dee di da da dum

I learned doggy paddle in the harbour
By the bright coloured boats tethered there
I rowed round the island with the redheaded Mac
Nursing my blisters all the way back
And I pocketed apples and daffodils just for a dare

But it's farewell to my familiars
I must now sail across the Irish Sea
And it's many long years I'll not be there
For trying to make some fortune
And when I return to that place so rare
I will see from many thousand feet
That speck of Dalkey Island
And its monuments from the air

I hid in the gorse in Sorrento Park
I was too late home for my tea
I climbed to the mosaic of Dowland
I skated my way round the bandstand
And I thought that this was the best life for me

I went up and down the Cat's Ladder
I knew every woman and man
I cycled the streets like a gale force wind
Battled the boys for some venial sins
And I kissed one or two of them on Mrs Lavery's land

But it's farewell to my familiars
I must now sail across the Irish Sea
And it's many long years I'll not much care
For trying to find some fortune
But when I return to that place so rare
I might see from many thousand feet
That speck of Dalkey Island
And seals in The Sound playing there

Alison O'Donnell & Isabel Ní Chuireáin Mise agus Ise 2006 MCPS/PRS

The Blackcap

As I passed over browning lands
To the sound of flapping wings
I saw ten miles ahead of me
A storm upon the sands
And I saw three horsemen travelling on
All dressed in bright clothing
The dust thrown up beneath their heels
Was seaward blowing

When I few over the darkened shore
I heard the gulls lamenting
And I knew that they would not follow me
As northwards on I soar
And I glimpsed an island far below
It was standing vast and empty
I thought to stand upon those rocks
That they might harbour me

Before I see my colony
The clouds should all have parted
And presently the sky is clear
The waters calm for me
And many will join me where
The days are long and quiet
And I know that we may meet again
Before the sun has set

Flibbertigibbet Whistling Jigs to the Moon & Alison O'Donnell & Isabel Ní Chuireáin Mise agus Ise 3rd Ear Music 1978

Armistice Day

Look up at the old man on the screen
His one good eye still twinkling
Rousing his voice for a verse or two
He becomes again what he has been
A brave little song full of fighting talk
Once rang across the trenches
On a cold day in hell at the Flanders fields
Eighty years ago
It's a miracle that he's not dead
He's a hundred and two
On this Armistice Day
A story to be told for when he's gone
There'll be no one left to tell
How the poppies got so red
High time he had an audience keen to hear
All of his recall
I stare at the shapes coming from his mouth
Bold images of fear
A defiant smile and a jaunty nod
Survived the futile conflict
Friend and enemy sank in the mud
The bones of the fallen turn in the sod
Eighty years on
It's a miracle that he's not dead …
I recline on a bed of red rose petals
Safe from his tale of slaughter
Weapons scattered to the sky
Shards of gun grey metal
I dine off fine china plates
He's scalded by a tin can mug
Split seconds then transmitted now
Tell how he deals with his fate
On the Flanders fields
It's a miracle that he's not dead …

Éisthlinn éist linn 2001 Kissing Spell & Alison O'Donnell & Isabel Ní Chuireáin Mise agus Ise 2006

The Talk of the Arcade

They shouldn't have lived together but they couldn't live apart
Divided by the head and ruled by too much heart
They often used to dance on the edge of borderline
Smooching in the silence still juggling all the time
All the time, all the time

Both could strike with passion in the kitchen or the hall
Dodging the delivery and bouncing back with the ball
Well it was pretty public when the door was kicked in
And we heard those bitter words that said they'd given in
Given in, they'd given in

She ran a classy shop from a downtown arcade
He biked in from time to time to pass the time and light of day
Sometimes they were loving and sometimes they were cruel
But often they would raise the roof with a mighty loss of cool
Almighty loss of cool

By the end of it all she was coiled up like a spring
Bird of bright plumage had to mend its broken wing
At first he stayed at home and turned the volume down
Then he put on his helmet went out spinning on the town
On the town, on the town

They didn't care if they were the talk of the arcade
Going on and going off like old albums overplayed
The more they tried to shout it out or keep an icy cool
The more they knew they'd fallen in a shark-infested pool
A shark-infested pool

Do they reminisce about those days sometimes?
It's safer not to scratch beneath the surface of one's life
There's possibly an earthquake and a raging tidal storm
Waiting to devour us when we think we've been reformed

It's all very well with hindsight to saunter with the smug
But i knew that disaster and in particular that drug
It's always such a pity and a belated crying shame
When the door is locked and barred with such permanent blame

Éisthlinn éist linn 2001 Kissing Spell

Blackberry Bush

The winter season harsh and cold upon the sycamore tree
That stands against the silent hills quietly growing old
Where men crossed swords in sympathy with those who might be free

At night I'll go to the monument to see who can be there
Sometimes a soldier is waiting for some greeting to be sent
Another girl to touch the stone and twist a lock of hair

She stood three hours so afraid till the sky grew dark ahead
She thought she heard the battle sound, the tune the piper played
The wind sighed on and the rain blew down, tears for those who led

But no one spoke and no one came enquiring of a love
Just the image of a drummer boy reminding us again
And the rain still beating from the sky among the shivering flowers

Every evening endlessly by the blackberry bush
Even when the moon is small by the blackberry bush
Until the earth is almost gone by the blackberry bush

Flibbertigibbet Whistling Jigs to the Moon 3rd Ear Music 1978

Episodes

Woman dusted powder
From jars of vanity
Turned to face her mountain
Loved its sanity

Talked with people on the road
The smoke of every flame
Caught a country morning
Loved the straightfoot plain

Woman downed a glass of port
Cheer of berries bright
Knew she lived a million years
Loved the sea at night

Bending in her boldness
To scoop the blackleaf tree
Her gesture and he listened wisely
Loved his majesty

Flibbertigibbet Whistling Jigs to the Moon 3rd Ear Music 1978

Heaven Heath

Bring snowy lady with the laughing
Spread your sailing angels over me
Tell a tale of old sinfuls
Look for you to change their face
Do not cry for all your leaden tears
Graced a lorded man whose gift was all too free
He came to fall upon a faithless smile
Leaning eyes towards the clay

And on my stone there where the flowers lie
Sleep the growing years of my dusty day
Gone the time of a heathen child
To the godly grounds to play
Weep the women on a watery leaf
Caught in browning robe all on my silent breath
I come to rise upon the Heaven Heath
With a timeless child to pray

Forget the garden of my graceless youth
Glimpse the wilting rose in my faded eye
Slip the shade from my shoulders
For a cobwebbed lake to catch
Bleed your soul for my silvered fate
Take the ageing cross to bury days gone by
Receive my own into your Heaven Heath
Towards my waiting bed to lie

Mellow Candle Swadding Songs Palace Music 1972

Sheep Season

Winding up a hillside where the shepherds roam
Counting their flocks in the gloaming
Shining the sea
Winking its light to the froth and the foam

Chilling the air with his shady tread
On came the wolf with surprise
Filling his eyes
With soft silent creatures soon to be dead

Hurry the shepherd man wizened and olden
Go and wave your staff at him
He has come to bury you for claiming his fold

Stillness came into the misty meadows
Down from the banks to the woodland
Clouds gather in skies
Giving their rains into mountains to flow

Mellow Candle Swadding Songs Palace Music 1972

Messenger Birds

She sat thinking under a black sky
With a white child, a white child on her knee
Leaning to the dim, grim, grey sea
Into a silent sleep

He lay wondering under the same coal sky
What the white child and she had gone to see
It was the clouded and cold night, bright sea
A woman kneel where her child used to be

Along the wind will bring them secret tears
Wash away their smiles in a rain across the sand
Seagulls take to a land where they'll not hear of his cries
Nor see the fallen tears of the white child's eyes

Mellow Candle Swadding Songs Palace Music 1972






Hangover from Hell Someone posts a fish in the mailbox Along comes a recruit with work ethic intact He held his nose and fished it out Cursed his colleagues for all they lacked It seems like every young one has a baby For there's not a lot else to aspire to Got to get away from hearth and home 'Cause there's not much there to live up to Poor girl waiting four years for somewhere to live Clutching straws and infant's limbs She's closed her books and shut the doors No chance of exchanging wedding rings Hand on the bible and hand on heart We can cross ourselves and hope to die Even though our sin can be heinous We swear we didn't do it and swear we didn't lie Get me to the chapel get me to the temple get me to the shrine Anywhere away from disappointment down the line Give me holy water to douse this hangover from hell I drank too much of everything in my quest to live life well I see them all around me see it everywhere Girls in first bud and boys in full bloom Got so much going but they're going too far They went too quickly they came too soon Death-defying substances doled out at the door Where the preacher used to reign supreme Some city spots have gone to the dogs But others are still every tourist's dream Get me to the chapel get me to the temple get me to the shrine … Get on the good roads and even if we must Sometimes live too fast in the slow lane And though big issues call to us Perfect intentions are tough to maintain Get me to the chapel get me to the temple get me to the shrine … Alison O'Donnell & Isabel Ní Chuireáin Mise agus Ise 2006 MCPS/PRS Mother of Pearl (and Invention) Oh where are you now my beautiful mother mine? In our bleached desert we await a cool green oasis In our parched garden the rose will wither and die Is that your perfect silhouette in the doorway? Will you brush your powdered cheek against mine? Oh where are you now my beautiful mother mine? I recall the swish of heavy velvet and thick satins You came for a while bringing chocolate and puzzles The plants that you knew in English and also in Latin Can you answer my letter to your box number Or close the shutters when the night wind is rattling? Oh where are you now my beautiful mother mine? Won't you come along soon mother of pearl and invention To take us to the fair in the playground of our dream? I cannot soothe your brow my lost and lonely children I am bound by brutal circumstance and cruel extreme I relinquish my little ones les pauvres choux de mon coeur I could not prevent the twists and turns of my fate I hold their hands in my reverie but the rest is a blur Their faces are faint through the glaze of my pane They'll forget me when many times clocks whiz and whir Oh where are you now my beautiful mother mine? Won't you come along soon mother of pearl and invention To take us to the fair in the playground of our dream? I cannot soothe your brow my lost and lonely children I am bound by brutal circumstance and cruel extreme Won't you come along soon mother of pearl and invention To paper over all your absence before it takes its toll? I cannot fold you in my arms today or tomorrow But I will bear you in my heart forever fused in my soul Alison O'Donnell & Isabel Ní Chuireáin Mise agus Ise 2006 MCPS/PRS In the Web When first I stood against you I had to stand my ground If I'd shown a tender weakness You would have struck me down A line was carved upon the floor Beyond which I could not tread And if I dared to look askance You'd file me with the dead Never raise me from the dead Stormy days and dreamy nights Brought you boiling to the brink Your glistening web of slow deceit Forged strong and fallow links I do not want to play your game The stakes are steep and high Come one day I will write you off You all know the reason why Know the reason why There's no more fury there is only scorn Count myself lucky I could walk away Won't help this world that you were born Won't let you cripple me today What does your conscience have to say? I am choking in this stuffy room I need some fresher air A fog descends with every day This treatment's most unfair You drowned me in a river Tied a wreath around my neck You hoped that I would float away But you're the washed-up wreck Washed up like a wreck There's no more fury there is only scorn Count myself lucky I could walk away Won't help this world that you were born Won't let you cripple me today What does your conscience have to say? And now I'm far removed from you The web it weaves no more I am out of this equation You have shown yourself the door Alison O'Donnell & Isabel Ní Chuireáin Mise agus Ise 2006 MCPS/PRS Brave Face If the postman comes knocking at my door Put on a quick lick of paint Can't open up without putting on a face But he seems pleased I've gone to the trouble Flushed with rouge but I feel pale and faint Smear of lipstick but no colour at the core And I do that for everyone Brave face for everyone And I do that for everyone I've a brave face for everyone I was like a hedgehog at that point in time But I've been a Christmas tree angel Prickly as pins and pine tree needles I've an avalanche of news too bleak to report So I'll probably lie low and not tell All the bad stuff and just say I feel fine I should talk to someone But I can't really tell anyone I should talk to someone Somebody somebody anyone I want to sink without trace for a while Off the road full of dizzying bends Become a recluse for a few precious weeks Bury my head in cooling sand I long to have reached the bitter end Of many tomorrows that pass without a smile I feel like I've turned into no one Nobody nobody no one I feel like I've turned into no one Nobody nobody no one But my life will be so different in ten years' time My heart could be soft as a fruit inside But still hard to the touch I thank my good friends for expecting so much And these dark days have come to pass And I can save face for everyone Open the door up for everyone Put on a brave face as bold as brass Alison O'Donnell & Isabel Ní Chuireáin Mise agus Ise 2006 MCPS/PRS Seals in the Sound My soul rises up with the morning It rests in the depths of the night And in between it embraces the pleasures Sometimes twisted with woe beyond measure And it swirls through Deilginis in the trail of a kite I walked with my togs along Vico I stood on the stones at White Rock And I waded in cold murky shallows Felt seaweed fronds flutter in the eddies and flows And homewards I bounded without shoes or socks Dip doo da doo dip doo da doo di dee di da da dum Dip doo da doo dip doo da doo di dee di da da dum I learned doggy paddle in the harbour By the bright coloured boats tethered there I rowed round the island with the redheaded Mac Nursing my blisters all the way back And I pocketed apples and daffodils just for a dare But it's farewell to my familiars I must now sail across the Irish Sea And it's many long years I'll not be there For trying to make some fortune And when I return to that place so rare I will see from many thousand feet That speck of Dalkey Island And its monuments from the air I hid in the gorse in Sorrento Park I was too late home for my tea I climbed to the mosaic of Dowland I skated my way round the bandstand And I thought that this was the best life for me I went up and down the Cat's Ladder I knew every woman and man I cycled the streets like a gale force wind Battled the boys for some venial sins And I kissed one or two of them on Mrs Lavery's land But it's farewell to my familiars I must now sail across the Irish Sea And it's many long years I'll not much care For trying to find some fortune But when I return to that place so rare I might see from many thousand feet That speck of Dalkey Island And seals in The Sound playing there Alison O'Donnell & Isabel Ní Chuireáin Mise agus Ise 2006 MCPS/PRS The Blackcap As I passed over browning lands To the sound of flapping wings I saw ten miles ahead of me A storm upon the sands And I saw three horsemen travelling on All dressed in bright clothing The dust thrown up beneath their heels Was seaward blowing When I few over the darkened shore I heard the gulls lamenting And I knew that they would not follow me As northwards on I soar And I glimpsed an island far below It was standing vast and empty I thought to stand upon those rocks That they might harbour me Before I see my colony The clouds should all have parted And presently the sky is clear The waters calm for me And many will join me where The days are long and quiet And I know that we may meet again Before the sun has set Flibbertigibbet Whistling Jigs to the Moon & Alison O'Donnell & Isabel Ní Chuireáin Mise agus Ise 3rd Ear Music 1978 Armistice Day Look up at the old man on the screen His one good eye still twinkling Rousing his voice for a verse or two He becomes again what he has been A brave little song full of fighting talk Once rang across the trenches On a cold day in hell at the Flanders fields Eighty years ago It's a miracle that he's not dead He's a hundred and two On this Armistice Day A story to be told for when he's gone There'll be no one left to tell How the poppies got so red High time he had an audience keen to hear All of his recall I stare at the shapes coming from his mouth Bold images of fear A defiant smile and a jaunty nod Survived the futile conflict Friend and enemy sank in the mud The bones of the fallen turn in the sod Eighty years on It's a miracle that he's not dead … I recline on a bed of red rose petals Safe from his tale of slaughter Weapons scattered to the sky Shards of gun grey metal I dine off fine china plates He's scalded by a tin can mug Split seconds then transmitted now Tell how he deals with his fate On the Flanders fields It's a miracle that he's not dead … Éisthlinn éist linn 2001 Kissing Spell & Alison O'Donnell & Isabel Ní Chuireáin Mise agus Ise 2006 The Talk of the Arcade They shouldn't have lived together but they couldn't live apart Divided by the head and ruled by too much heart They often used to dance on the edge of borderline Smooching in the silence still juggling all the time All the time, all the time Both could strike with passion in the kitchen or the hall Dodging the delivery and bouncing back with the ball Well it was pretty public when the door was kicked in And we heard those bitter words that said they'd given in Given in, they'd given in She ran a classy shop from a downtown arcade He biked in from time to time to pass the time and light of day Sometimes they were loving and sometimes they were cruel But often they would raise the roof with a mighty loss of cool Almighty loss of cool By the end of it all she was coiled up like a spring Bird of bright plumage had to mend its broken wing At first he stayed at home and turned the volume down Then he put on his helmet went out spinning on the town On the town, on the town They didn't care if they were the talk of the arcade Going on and going off like old albums overplayed The more they tried to shout it out or keep an icy cool The more they knew they'd fallen in a shark-infested pool A shark-infested pool Do they reminisce about those days sometimes? It's safer not to scratch beneath the surface of one's life There's possibly an earthquake and a raging tidal storm Waiting to devour us when we think we've been reformed It's all very well with hindsight to saunter with the smug But i knew that disaster and in particular that drug It's always such a pity and a belated crying shame When the door is locked and barred with such permanent blame They didn't care if they were the talk of the arcade Going on and going off like old albums overplayed The more they tried to shout it out or keep an icy cool The more they knew they'd fallen in a shark-infested pool A shark-infested pool Éisthlinn éist linn 2001 Kissing Spell Blackberry Bush The winter season harsh and cold upon the sycamore tree That stands against the silent hills quietly growing old Where men crossed swords in sympathy with those who might be free At night I'll go to the monument to see who can be there Sometimes a soldier is waiting for some greeting to be sent Another girl to touch the stone and twist a lock of hair She stood three hours so afraid till the sky grew dark ahead She thought she heard the battle sound, the tune the piper played The wind sighed on and the rain blew down, tears for those who led But no one spoke and no one came enquiring of a love Just the image of a drummer boy reminding us again And the rain still beating from the sky among the shivering flowers Every evening endlessly by the blackberry bush Even when the moon is small by the blackberry bush Until the earth is almost gone by the blackberry bush Flibbertigibbet Whistling Jigs to the Moon 3rd Ear Music 1978 Episodes Woman dusted powder From jars of vanity Turned to face her mountain Loved its sanity Talked with people on the road The smoke of every flame Caught a country morning Loved the straightfoot plain Woman downed a glass of port Cheer of berries bright Knew she lived a million years Loved the sea at night Bending in her boldness To scoop the blackleaf tree Her gesture and he listened wisely Loved his majesty Flibbertigibbet Whistling Jigs to the Moon 3rd Ear Music 1978 Heaven Heath Bring snowy lady with the laughing Spread your sailing angels over me Tell a tale of old sinfuls Look for you to change their face Do not cry for all your leaden tears Graced a lorded man whose gift was all too free He came to fall upon a faithless smile Leaning eyes towards the clay And on my stone there where the flowers lie Sleep the growing years of my dusty day Gone the time of a heathen child To the godly grounds to play Weep the women on a watery leaf Caught in browning robe all on my silent breath I come to rise upon the Heaven Heath With a timeless child to pray Forget the garden of my graceless youth Glimpse the wilting rose in my faded eye Slip the shade from my shoulders For a cobwebbed lake to catch Bleed your soul for my silvered fate Take the ageing cross to bury days gone by Receive my own into your Heaven Heath Towards my waiting bed to lie Mellow Candle Swadding Songs Palace Music 1972 Sheep Season Winding up a hillside where the shepherds roam Counting their flocks in the gloaming Shining the sea Winking its light to the froth and the foam Chilling the air with his shady tread On came the wolf with surprise Filling his eyes With soft silent creatures soon to be dead Hurry the shepherd man wizened and olden Go and wave your staff at him He has come to bury you for claiming his fold Stillness came into the misty meadows Down from the banks to the woodland Clouds gather in skies Giving their rains into mountains to flow Mellow Candle Swadding Songs Palace Music 1972 Messenger Birds She sat thinking under a black sky With a white child, a white child on her knee Leaning to the dim, grim, grey sea Into a silent sleep He lay wondering under the same coal sky What the white child and she had gone to see It was the clouded and cold night, bright sea A woman kneel where her child used to be Along the wind will bring them secret tears Wash away their smiles in a rain across the sand Seagulls take to a land where they'll not hear of his cries Nor see the fallen tears of the white child's eyes Mellow Candle Swadding Songs Palace Music 1972