Before the Deluge (Arr. Caroline Shaw)

Some of them were dreamers

And some of them were fools

Who were making plans

And thinking of the future

With the energy of the innocent

They were gathering the tools

They would need to make their journey

Back to nature

While the sand slipped through the opening

And their hands reached for the golden ring

With their hearts they turned to each other's hearts

For refuge

In the troubled years that came

Before the deluge

Some of them knew pleasure

And some of them knew pain

And for some of them it was only the moment that mattered

On the brave and crazy wings of youth

They went flying around in the rain

And their feathers once so fine

Grew torn and tattered

And in the end they traded their tired wings

For the resignation that living brings

And exchanged love's bright and fragile glow

For the glitter and the rouge

And in a moment they were swept

Before the deluge

Now let the music keep our spirits high

And let the buildings keep our children dry

Let creation reveal its secrets by and by

By and by

When the light that's lost within us reaches the sky

Some of them were angry

At the way the earth was abused

By the men who learned how to forge her beauty into power

And they struggled to protect her from them

Only to be confused

By the magnitude of her fury in the final hour

And when the sand was gone and the time arrived

In the naked dawn only a few survived

And in attempts to understand a thing

So simple and so huge

Believed that they were meant to live

After the deluge

Now let the music keep our spirits high

And let the buildings keep our children dry

Let creation reveal its secrets by and by

By and by

When the light that's lost within us reaches the sky