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The Hermit

Richard Dawson•Официальное аудио (YouTube API)

Текст песни

I'm awake but I can't yet see

An eager chiffchaff is heralding me

The image starts to form of a four-poster bed

Sprung in the clarts of a riverbend

And the Claviger knows

When the beaded shoots go

Through the arid interstix of my toes

Among the mazed roots of Rowan as

I pass my waste

Vaporous shafts of a burgeoning sun

Skewer the forest-floor onto a world fresh begun

All in the Name of the Harvest

I.e. our ever-onrushing plasma

Shadows of leaves

Mottled by thе cleaves

Of caterpillar's ardеnt mandibles

Form a basketweave of glowing mud

Bluebells in bud

Linen smock

And scarlet-embroidered mantua

Descend from alderbranches shined with dew to settle

Onto my body

A little emerald brooch

Unclasps itself from moss

To alight upon my breast

I step into a slipperpair -

Exquisite replicas of those worn by

Ada, the Enchantress of Numbers

Two swallowed cups

Of pureed bilberries

Which grow in abundance

By the cornmill ruins

One hungers for nothing

Now let's follow

These tracks of a Fallow Deer -

Sentences of clay leading away from here

Out of the yawning dene

And over a gorsey brow vanishes

Her black horseshoe rump and tattered tail

Into a gossamer vale

At the heather-tousled crest of

Yeavering Bell we may enter a

Stone beacon-tower

From which the eye may

Hold a whole sweep of the kingdom

Hazy marshes, crow-pocked copses

Patchwork meadows labyrinthed with hedgerows

Gently declining to a fluff of woodsmoke

Clung to the fringe of the North Sea

The village of Bebba

Where once I lived, a

Fisher, before I was forced to flee

One fair morn, wrapped in a shawl of salt-mist

I gathered in my pots of White-Clawed Crayfish

And from those sucking sands

Did I make my way

Dripping to the kitchendoor of the Crossed Keys

Young Charley Wheatstone, the innkeeper's lad

With the same star-shaped birthmark as his dad

Set square on his chin

Bid me a shy "hail fellow"

And emptied the squeaking traps

Into a pewter trough

The forlorn brewer, lacking ample coin

Apologised with a token of grubs on a stick

And suggested payment take the form

Of an upgrade to my visual and ontoceptual cortexes

Back in the throes of my then-home -

A blubberlit chamber,

Off the cliff-crazing tunnels beneath the fort -

I donned Diogenes' Robes, imbibed the Code

And disappeared into a dream of Kittiwakes

A hundred billion voices echoing around a

Dark amphitheatre

Still ringing in my ears

As I went, creel in hand

Through the Bog of Names

Upon entering a blossom grove

I went into total spasm as a

Storm of info broke abruptly across my retinas

I came around to an enhanced perception

Of every life-form within a ten-yard radius

Each throbbed with its own aurora

Utterly awed

I'd inadvertently drawn to my mind's-eye

A lone Ashy Miner Bee, as if to a plate

Under a microscope

I sobbed as I zoomed among

Individual hairs on its forelegs and face

And stared for a long time into the ommatidia

Performing a scan

On a cache of False Death Caps

I found I could trace their history

All the way back to manufacture

Slippery Jack, Amethyst Deceiver

Fairy Rings, Penny Buns, Hen Of The Wood

I was amazed

Scrolling not only the funguses yesterdays

But also their myriad yet-bloomed tomorrows

With a burden of redcurrants

And wild garlic at my elbow I

I wearily made my

Way along Crackpool Burn

Joining the coast road at Glororum

Up ahead I could see what

Looked to be a robot knelt in the lane

Revealed at a higher magnification

As a gilt-clad knight of Old

Submerged at the waist in

Unyielding concrete

Flailing his arms to a windmill of gold

Lifting up the poor soul's visor

My gaze met with a mask of

Vein-popping fury -

Or was it abject fear? -

Gasping the Chivalric oath

Then, it was over -

He split asunder

Gleaming armour dissolving to unveil

The apprentice of Godwin the Whitesmith, a merest sliver of a man

Stooped to retrieve the platinum from his mouth I

Heard halted hooves in the dust, and the cry "MURDERER!"

Tiny cobles out at sea