Song from Savoy (Annecy, October 1956)

Song from Savoy (Annecy, October 1956)

Lavender's blue, dilly dilly, lavender's green;
When I am king, dilly dilly, you shall be queen.

Mountains lie placid there, golden October;
Sing songs, clear cascades fall
Feathering mountains' wall;
Falling leaves lisp and glow
Going to winter sleep
Slow on the sunset farms in the valleys.
So it is autumn's tale;
Blind singer strums the strings
Calls his committed themes
Calm but as strong as a hawk from a high wing of air
Falling down evening while night fills the constant cold streams
And my love lies smiling, combing her sweet scented hair.
Now night and the moon lap the farmlands in foreign designs.

Returned from high mountains by bending small roads
We stopped at the dying hotel, by moon and the lake
Watched fogs form on black water, blotting out the mountains,
And slept in a summer's room scented by possibilities,
By fragrant memories of thirty, forty sad sweet years ago.

Morning becomes a cold slow thing,
Dawns with no color or bird-song.
Pale fog lies on the fallow fields too long:
Then sun comes on the mountains.

Come with me and be a dreamer, deliberate on gardens
Grand at the ponds by oaks and orange trees
Where red full lust may walk upon the path
In a day of dried blooms and dying bees
When time lays low late summer's leaves
And winter's coming near, despite a sunny breeze
And plump pigeons and bold starlings in gold parks.
Sun dries the leaves in peace, in fading powers
These autumn hours.