When the night is growing darker and the day is growing black,
There's nobody I trust so well as you to guard my back,
As strong in faith and quick with blade as anyone could be,
And I've never called you sister but you're family to me.
We go out to the mountains and we come back to the town
We drink and talk and argue as the summer sun goes down
And I know the law will say that there's no tie from you to me,
But we've shed our blood together, and that's family to me.
Now you don't follow any god that I can call my own,
But while we stand together I need never fight alone,
From the river to the forest we will
Rebecca was a trusting soul, and innocent of death,
She saw the hope in every dawn, the joy in every breath,
She never thought to worry over shaggy bears until
She heard the men were going out, the newborn cubs to kill.
The cubs had done no wrong; she could not bear to see them slain
The Bear had come here every year, and every year the same
Had hunted in the valley in the hungry winter time
And when the farmers claimed the land, the Bear said 'This is mine'.
The farmers had been driven off; the men would not forgive,
Rebecca wept to hear of it, and had no help to give,
And so she crept into the dark to seek the fearsome Bear
And w
The gods have played this trick on me, to love the growing trees,
And crying wind and falling rain and starlight on the seas,
That in my heart for humankind there might be little room.
For many years and many days I gloried in this doom.
But after many days had fled and many years had passed,
I found that life was less alone - I sought a love at last.
I sought a priest to bless me, for my journey might be long
If indeed it ever ended. There are few who sing my song.
The priest said "I will bless you, for the journey and the way,
But first I will give counsel - I have only this to say -
What need have you for lovers? You yearn towar
When the night is growing darker and the day is growing black,
There's nobody I trust so well as you to guard my back,
As strong in faith and quick with blade as anyone could be,
And I've never called you sister but you're family to me.
We go out to the mountains and we come back to the town
We drink and talk and argue as the summer sun goes down
And I know the law will say that there's no tie from you to me,
But we've shed our blood together, and that's family to me.
Now you don't follow any god that I can call my own,
But while we stand together I need never fight alone,
From the river to the forest we will
Rebecca was a trusting soul, and innocent of death,
She saw the hope in every dawn, the joy in every breath,
She never thought to worry over shaggy bears until
She heard the men were going out, the newborn cubs to kill.
The cubs had done no wrong; she could not bear to see them slain
The Bear had come here every year, and every year the same
Had hunted in the valley in the hungry winter time
And when the farmers claimed the land, the Bear said 'This is mine'.
The farmers had been driven off; the men would not forgive,
Rebecca wept to hear of it, and had no help to give,
And so she crept into the dark to seek the fearsome Bear
And w
The gods have played this trick on me, to love the growing trees,
And crying wind and falling rain and starlight on the seas,
That in my heart for humankind there might be little room.
For many years and many days I gloried in this doom.
But after many days had fled and many years had passed,
I found that life was less alone - I sought a love at last.
I sought a priest to bless me, for my journey might be long
If indeed it ever ended. There are few who sing my song.
The priest said "I will bless you, for the journey and the way,
But first I will give counsel - I have only this to say -
What need have you for lovers? You yearn towar
To write an ode that rhymes
requires an art:
to set from spoken word apart
the poet wishing to impart
a wisdom so profound.
Expect the verse, at times,
to change a sound:
the center of a stanza bound
to flip the former form around
and end much like the start.
A new sound may appear,
and fill the space
of other words that take this place,
which one expects to fit the case
of patterns that repeat.
But to the mold adhere
and too the beat,
to, without error, thus complete
a poem on poetic feat
of planned and perfect pace.
[and just to lead the audience astray
(and dodge the risk of sounding too cliché),
Ill change
Rebecca was a trusting soul, and innocent of death,
She saw the hope in every dawn, the joy in every breath,
She never thought to worry over shaggy bears until
She heard the men were going out, the newborn cubs to kill.
The cubs had done no wrong; she could not bear to see them slain
The Bear had come here every year, and every year the same
Had hunted in the valley in the hungry winter time
And when the farmers claimed the land, the Bear said 'This is mine'.
The farmers had been driven off; the men would not forgive,
Rebecca wept to hear of it, and had no help to give,
And so she crept into the dark to seek the fearsome Bear
And w