Julia on Pandateria by William Auld Lyrics
Life on this isle sets slow on the horizon
In the long afternoons a dreary wind
Along the whispering sea's shore, exciting
My dress indifferently, will always grind
Upon my memories, and with every breath
Bear witness: Death, death, death...there's still no death.
A three-time wife, a night-time ravishing woman,
who only prized the present through the years
has come to this: the fluting of a gull,
a past in vain, a future full of tears.
An empty woman weakens pale, as would
A spirit starved of sacrificial blood.
And I conclude, here in this brutal crude
Place where the flesh will rot beneath a dew
Foreign and freezing, that the life of the roses,
Wine and perfume-crazed kisses that I knew
Was always empty and estranged. This one
Queen of the world was always a corpse alone.
When coupled I was most alone, yet sought
Happiness where I could, where I was bound
By the compulsions of a curious yearning.
Always the more I sought, the more I found
Only unhappiness in lovers' joys.
I always fell for all the same old ploys.
That was a different me- a legend heard
Once in a stranger's dream, and that is all.
What does Rome mean? It means the naked sand,
Rocks and the wind's rough hands, a crying gull,
While my sapped body wilts in apathy
And Rome is just a fever fantasy.
The Here and Now no longer matters. Time now
Consists of nothing but eternity
And the young body that I am, betrayed
And hammered overmuch by destiny,
Can flame no more, can touch no joy or drive,
And even death leaves me for dead alive.
In the long afternoons a dreary wind
Along the whispering sea's shore, exciting
My dress indifferently, will always grind
Upon my memories, and with every breath
Bear witness: Death, death, death...there's still no death.
A three-time wife, a night-time ravishing woman,
who only prized the present through the years
has come to this: the fluting of a gull,
a past in vain, a future full of tears.
An empty woman weakens pale, as would
A spirit starved of sacrificial blood.
And I conclude, here in this brutal crude
Place where the flesh will rot beneath a dew
Foreign and freezing, that the life of the roses,
Wine and perfume-crazed kisses that I knew
Was always empty and estranged. This one
Queen of the world was always a corpse alone.
When coupled I was most alone, yet sought
Happiness where I could, where I was bound
By the compulsions of a curious yearning.
Always the more I sought, the more I found
Only unhappiness in lovers' joys.
I always fell for all the same old ploys.
That was a different me- a legend heard
Once in a stranger's dream, and that is all.
What does Rome mean? It means the naked sand,
Rocks and the wind's rough hands, a crying gull,
While my sapped body wilts in apathy
And Rome is just a fever fantasy.
The Here and Now no longer matters. Time now
Consists of nothing but eternity
And the young body that I am, betrayed
And hammered overmuch by destiny,
Can flame no more, can touch no joy or drive,
And even death leaves me for dead alive.