Snow Drop Lyrics

It is a winter's tale
That the snow blind twilight ferries over
the lakes
And floating fields from the farm in the
cup of the
vales,
Gliding windless through the hand folded
flakes,
The pale breath of cattle at the stealthy
sail,

And the stars falling cold,
And the smell of hay in the snow, and the
far owl
Warning among the folds, and the frozen
hold
Flocked with the sheep white smoke of the
farm house
cowl
In the river wended vales where the tale
was told.

Once when the world turned old
On a star of faith pure as the drifting
bread,
As the food and flames of the snow, a man
unrolled
The scrolls of fire that burned in his
heart and head,
Torn and alone in a farm house in a fold

Of fields. And burning then
In his firelit island ringed by the winged
snow
And the dung hills white as wool and the
hen
Roosts sleeping chill till the flame of the
cock crow
Combs through the mantled yards and the
morning men

Stumble out with their spades,
The cattle stirring, the mousing cat
stepping shy,
The puffed birds hopping and hunting, the
milkmaids
Gentle in their clogs over the fallen sky,
And all the woken farm at its white trades,

He knelt, he wept, he prayed,
By the spit and the black pot in the log
bright light
And the cup and the cut bread in the
dancing shade,
In the muffled house, in the quick of
night,
At the point of love, forsaken and afraid.

He knelt on the cold stones,
He wept form the crest of grief, he prayed
to the
veiled sky
May his hunger go howling on bare white
bones
Past the statues of the stables and the sky
roofed
sties
And the duck pond glass and the blinding
byres alone

Into the home of prayers
And fires where he should prowl down the
cloud
Of his snow blind love and rush in the
white lairs.
His naked need struck him howling and bowed
Though no sound flowed down the hand folded
air

But only the wind strung
Hunger of birds in the fields of the bread
of water,
tossed
In high corn and the harvest melting on
their tongues.
And his nameless need bound him burning and
lost
When cold as snow he should run the wended
vales among

The rivers mouthed in night,
And drown in the drifts of his need, and
lie curled
caught
In the always desiring centre of the white
Inhuman cradle and the bride bed forever
sought
By the believer lost and the hurled outcast
of light.

Deliver him, he cried,
By losing him all in love, and cast his
need
Alone and naked in the engulfing bride,
Never to flourish in the fields of the
white seed
Or flower under the time dying flesh
astride.

Listen. The minstrels sing
In the departed villages. The nightingale,
Dust in the buried wood, flies on the
grains of her
wings
And spells on the winds of the dead his
winter's tale.
The voice of the dust of water from the
withered spring

Is telling. The wizened
Stream with bells and baying water bounds.
The dew
rings
On the gristed leaves and the long gone
glistening
Parish of snow. The carved mouths in the
rock are wind
swept strings.
Time sings through the intricately dead
snow drop.
Listen.

It was a hand or sound
In the long ago land that glided the dark
door wide And there outside on the bread of the
ground
A she bird rose and rayed like a burning
bride.
A she bird dawned, and her breast with snow
and scarlet
downed.

Look. And the dancers move
On the departed, snow bushed green, wanton
in moon
light
As a dust of pigeons. Exulting, the grave
hooved
Horses, centaur dead, turn and tread the
drenched white
Paddocks in the farms of birds. The dead
oak walks for
love.

The carved limbs in the rock
Leap, as to trumpets. Calligraphy of the
old
Leaves is dancing. Lines of age on the
stones weave in
a flock.
And the harp shaped voice of the water's
dust plucks in
a fold
Of fields. For love, the long ago she bird
rises. Look.

And the wild wings were raised
Above her folded head, and the soft
feathered voice
Was flying through the house as though the
she bird
praised
And all the elements of the slow fall
rejoiced
That a man knelt alone in the cup of the
vales,

In the mantle and calm,
By the spit and the black pot in the log
bright light.
And the sky of birds in the plumed voice
charmed
Him up and he ran like a wind after the
kindling flight
Past the blind barns and byres of the
windless farm.

In the poles of the year
When black birds died like priests in the
cloaked hedge
row
And over the cloth of counties the far
hills rode near,
Under the one leaved trees ran a scarecrow
of snow
And fast through the drifts of the thickets
antlered
like deer,

Rags and prayers down the knee-
Deep hillocks and loud on the numbed lakes,
All night lost and long wading in the wake
of the she-
Bird through the times and lands and tribes
of the slow
flakes.
Listen and look where she sails the goose
plucked sea,

The sky, the bird, the bride,
The cloud, the need, the planted stars, the
joy beyond
The fields of seed and the time dying flesh
astride,
The heavens, the heaven, the grave, the
burning font.
In the far ago land the door of his death
glided wide,

And the bird descended.
On a bread white hill over the cupped farm
And the lakes and floating fields and the
river wended
Vales where he prayed to come to the last
harm
And the home of prayers and fires, the tale
ended.

The dancing perishes
On the white, no longer growing green, and,
minstrel
dead,
The singing breaks in the snow shoed
villages of wishes
That once cut the figures of birds on the
deep bread
And over the glazed lakes skated the shapes
of fishes

Flying. The rite is shorn
Of nightingale and centaur dead horse. The
springs
wither
Back. Lines of age sleep on the stones till
trumpeting
dawn.
Exultation lies down. Time buries the
spring weather
That belled and bounded with the fossil and
the dew
reborn.

For the bird lay bedded
In a choir of wings, as though she slept or
died,
And the wings glided wide and he was hymned
and wedded,
And through the thighs of the engulfing
bride,
The woman breasted and the heaven headed

Bird, he was brought low,
Burning in the bride bed of love, in the
whirl-
Pool at the wanting centre, in the folds
Of paradise, in the spun bud of the world.
And she rose with him flowering in her
melting snow.
Lyrics found here

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