Like dolorous voices that creep through the walls of a penitent’s cell
How green the Elm Field and how bittersweet the smell
That was caught with the wind in the branches and mixed with the rain as it fell
I’ve been wasting my time waiting too long for a ship to appear
Over the skyline watching the waves from the estuary spill
And into the mist-trimmed distance peering still
At a false horizon
Among their heroes the storytellers
cast
Perseus battling snake-haired Medusa to triumph at last
But not so Josephine she sits alone
For Bonaparte sleeps with his armies tonight and may never come home
But it’s no hero stands you now before
Counting his rosary casting his eyes to the floor
And though sirens called from passing island shores
I am the sole survivor
Hot through Troy’s
ruin Menelaus rode
Through the flashing of fires and the clashing of arms to the palace he
strode
What eager queen to see what prophecy foretold
What thirst to be quenched with a whisper what hunger a decade postponed
High sat white Helen lonely and severe
And anointed she frowned at the dust on his brow and the sweat in his
beard
You took a long time coming now there’s nothing for you here
Was her cold surmisal
Back they sailed together
across the world
No royal standard at the masthead flying and the black sail furled
So we’ll leave them there forever until their cup’s half-filled
As the wind weeps and the rigging creaks and the oarsmen heave and pull
Chords:
Intro. A Bm C#m D E A E
Verse A C#m D Bm E7 A (E)
Chorus D E A D F#m E A E