For the Birds

Goodbye, goodbye,
Goodbye to my only home.
Goodbye to every bird
I've ever known.

And we'll glide out above the trees,
Looking out as far as the eye can see
Committing the steeple, the sun, and the sky
To memory.

And we'll know just what to do,
Getting lost in everything bright and blue
We'll fly the day, the night, and find
The morning new.

Goodbye, goodbye,
Goodbye after I'm long gone.
Goodbye to every branch
I've waited on.

Stay

Well, he headed for home
Towards the end of that year
In his torn soldier's coat
And his miserable beard.
He passed all those eyes
So faded and dim.
He walked twelve hundred miles
Just to reach her again.
And all that he had
Or could manage to save
Was a small scrap of paper
He would take to his grave.
And he tired; he was tired.
The ink had ran in the rain.
But every night by the fire
He'd read it again.
"When it comes on down
To my last days.
I hope you'll be here,
And I hope you'll stay.
I hope you'll be here,
And I hope you'll stay."

For the rest of his life
He was never the same.
Some men die from the wounds.
Some die from the pain.
It took all he had left
Just to drop at her door
He'd fought his last fight.
He'd made it home from the war.
But she washed and she fed him
And she put him to bed
And every night his hands trembled
As he looked up and said,
"When it comes on down
To my last days.
I hope you'll be here,
And I hope you'll stay.
I hope you'll be here,
And I hope you'll stay."

Well, he was buried out back
In the shade of a tree.
He was ninety years old,
And she had turned eighty three.
He had no medals or honors
To take to the ground
Just an old scrap of paper
That was faded and brown.
Well, she followed him home
That following May.
She just passed in the night.
She just slipped away.
"It was her heart, bless her heart,"
Was all they could say.
But there was that look in her eyes
That shone through the grey.
He was there, he was there
On that very last day.
He said, "You knew I'd be here.
You knew that I'd stay.
You knew I'd be here.
You knew that I'd stay."

Passing on the Street

Surely, there's another world
Where you and I are still young,
Bearing none of the broken scars
Of this bitter life.
I knew you there.  I saw you.
Both of us smiling.

The Dragon

My sword, my sole companion,
You've watched me through the winters,
Through the long nights,
The summers and the spring.
And so, in this hour, I know I won't be abandoned.
We'll ride for glory, for the homeland,
And for the king.

And I know, the spirits above me,
The ones that hate me, ones that love me,
In their sleep they count the days
Till I ride for home,
And though I hate to keep them,
My enemies, I must defeat them,
Till the last of their graves is overgrown.

So, on the field of battle,
I'll ride out tall and cast a shadow,
Bearing teeth, bearing metal,
The path before me sweeping clear.
Some have called me The Dragon,
Others a nightmare, many have spoken
Their last words for me to hear.

My sword, my final companion,
Stay with me now in the darkness,
Beside my armor, beside my shield
Laid across my chest.
I knew that I'd never be more than a phantom,
Never take a wife, or be a husband,
And only now can I find rest.