Twa Bardies

From The Known Words 2, long out of print and replaced by The Known Words, which doesn’t include this (among others) due to it being not of sufficiently high standard:

All good things come to an end. So do all average things. And all awful things. Which is this about? Ah, that would be telling… I did write this, however, in the depths of depression (’though it’s not as bad as the other ones I wrote and destroyed, so don’t complain) and the last verse, I think, proves that I was still, even then, an incurable optimist. It’s a filk of Twa Corbies, as if you couldn’t guess; the original follows.

[1994]

As I was singing a silly song,
I saw a lady with hair so long.
Her eyes so shining with the flame, oh
I knew that I had to learn her name, oh
I knew that I had to learn her name.

I asked that lady for a kiss,
Her love she gave as well as this.
Our song we sung for a year and a day, oh,
Until she left me and went away, oh
Until she left me and went away.

So now I sing here all alone,
The wind blows through my hollow breast bone,
And all I long for, if truth be told, oh,
Is the quiet grave so deep and cold, oh
Is the quiet grave so deep and cold.

But soon some other fire will blaze,
And soon my dead cold head will raise,
And there among the voices high, oh,
Some other young lass will catch my eye, oh,
Some other young lass will catch my eye.