Lyrics Of My Youth: The Other Shore

Crazy now, my mind is turning
Ov'r the pages of my learning
Looking for a truth that won't be found

Lost now, the darkness binds us
Till the morning comes to find us
Ages older than the day before

Towards eternity we're sailing,
And in spite of my failings
Sometimes I can see the other shore

Spinning mad, my senses leave me
And I find they have deceived me
Left me tripping, reeling like a fool

In my heart a song is burning
And the sky above is twirling
To the distant music that I hear

Towards eternity we're sailing
And behind us we're trailing
Garlands of flowers in the wind

Towards eternity we're flying
Even though I'm scared of dying
Sometimes I can see the other shore

~~~~~
From June 1972

Lyrics Of My Youth

Somewhere back in the early 1970s, I fancied myself a songwriter and folksinger. I recently unearthed some lyrics and music sheets from those times, and I wondered: Where did that strange young woman go with her poems and her dreams? What would I think of her if I met her now?

In James Joyce's Ulysses, the character Stephan Dedalus ponders: "My childhood bends beside me. Too far for me to lay a hand there once or lightly. Mine is far and his secret as our eyes. Secrets, silent, stony sit in the dark palaces of both our hearts: secrets weary of their tyranny: tryants willing to be dethroned."

And so I am posting some of my old lyrics here, bringing them forth from their weary and dark and secret palace, into the light of this new millennium. And I am finding in those old lyrics a few moments of charm and beauty and magic still.

I share them here with an older, and wearier world. Perhaps that strange young woman who journeyed so far in her dreams would smile.

Lyrics Of My Youth

The Other Shore

Lyrics Of My Youth

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