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Van Der Graaf Generator |
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Still Life |
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Childlike Faith In Childhood's End |
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Existence is a stage on which we pass, a |
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sleep-walk trick for mind and heart: |
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it's hopeless, I know, |
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but onward I must go |
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and try to make a start |
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at seeing something more than day-to-day |
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survival chased by final death. |
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If I believed this the sum |
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of the life to which we've come |
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I wouldn't waste my breath. |
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Somehow, there must be more. |
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There was a time when more was felt than |
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known, |
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but now, entrenched inside my sett, |
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in light more mundane, thought rattles |
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round my brain; |
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we live, we die... and yet? |
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In the beginning there was order and |
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destiny but now that path has reached the |
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border and on our knees is no way to face |
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the future, whatever it be. |
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Though the forces which hold us in place |
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last through eons in unruffled grace |
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we, too, wear the face of creation |
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As anti-matter sucks and pulses |
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periodically the bud unfolds, the bloom |
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is dead, all space is living history. |
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It seems as though time must betray us, |
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yet we're alive |
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and though I see no God to save us still we |
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survive |
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through the centuries of progress |
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which don't get us very far. |
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All illusion! All is bogus - we don't yet |
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know what we are... laughing, hoping |
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praying, joking, Son of Man! |
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With lowered eyes but lifting hearts, |
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we're grains of sand |
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and though, in time, the sea may claim us |
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for its own |
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we are the rocks which root the future - |
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on us it grows! |
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We might not be there to share it if |
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eternity's a jest |
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but I think that I can hear it |
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if the next life is the best. |
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Even if there is a heaven when we die |
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endless bliss would be as meaningless |
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as the lie that always comes as answer to |
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the question 'Why do we see through the |
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eyes of creation?' |
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Adrift without a course, it's very lonely |
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here, our only conjecture what lies |
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behind the dark. |
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Still, I find I can cling to a lifeline, |
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think of a lifetime which means more than |
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my own one - dreams of a grander thing |
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than we are, |
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Time and Space hand heavy on my |
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shoulders; |
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when all life is over who can say |
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no mutated force shall remain? |
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Though the towers of the city are denied |
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to we men of clay |
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still we know we shall scale the heights |
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some day. |
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Frightened in the silence - |
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frightened, but thinking very hard, |
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let us make computation of the stars. |
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Older, wiser, sadder, blinder, watch us |
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run; faster, longer, harder, stronger, now |
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it comes: colour blisters, image splinters |
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gravitate towards the centre, in final |
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splendour disintegrate. |
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The universe now beckons |
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and Man, too, must take His place... |
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just a few last fleeting seconds |
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to wander in the waste |
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and the children who were ourselves |
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move on |
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reincarnation stills its now perfected song |
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and at last we are freed of the bonds |
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of creation. |
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All the jokers and gaolers, all the junkies |
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and slavers too, |
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all the throng who have danced a merry |
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tune - human we can all be, |
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but Humanity we must rise above |
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in the name of all faith and hope and love. |
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There's a time for all pilgrims, and a time |
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for the fakers too, |
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there's a time when we all will stand alone |
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and nude; |
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naked to the galaxies - |
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naked, but clothed in the overview... as |
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we reach Childhood's End we start anew. |
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And though dark is the highway |
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and the peak's distance breaks my heart, |
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for I never shall see it, still I play my part, |
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believing that what waits for us is the |
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cosmos compared to the dust of the |
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past... |
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in the death of mere humans life shall |
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start! |
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