The Big Huge
 
Maya
By Robin Williamson
 
Robin: guitar, bass
Mike: sitar
Rose, Licorice: percussion
 
The dust of the rivers does murmur and weep
Hard and sharp laughter that cuts to the bone
Ah, but ever face within your face does show
Going gladly now to give himself his own
 
And twelve yellow willows shall fellow the shallows
Small waves and thunder be my pillow
Upon the gleaming water two swans that swim
And every place shall be my native home
 
The east gate like a fortress dissolve it away
The west gate like a prison O come break it down
Island I remember living here
Wandering beneath the empty skies
 
In time her hair grew long and swept the ground
And seven blackbirds carried it out behind
It bore the holy imprint of her mind
As green-foot slow she moved among the seasons
 
The great man, the great man, historians his memory
Artists his senses, thinkers his brain
Labourers his growth
Explorers his limbs
And soldiers his death each second
And mystics his rebirth each second
Businessmen his nervous system
No-hustle men his stomach
Astrologers his balance
Lovers his loins
His skin it is all patchy
But soon will reach one glowing hue
God is his soul
Infinity his goal
The mystery his source
And civilisation he leaves behind
Opinions are his fingernails
 
Maya Maya
All this world is but a play
Be thou the joyful player
 
The wanderer no sense does make
His eyes being tied in the true love's knot
The trees perceive his soul
Do not detain him long
 
Dear little animal dark-eyed and small
Caring for your fur with pointed paws
This hawk of truth is swift and flies with a still cry
A small sweetmeat to the eyes of night
 
O dandelion be thou thine
Reflecting the sun in sexual glory
In every-changing tongues
The every-changing story
 
The book, man, bird, woman, serpent, sea, sun
Blessed O blessed are they of the air
Your eyes are the eyes
Of the glad land
Ye twelve that will enter the seasons
 
The great ship, the ship of the world
Long time sailing
Mariners, mariners, gather your skills
 
Jesus and Hitler and Richard the Lion Heart
Three kings and Moses and Queen Cleopatra
The Cobbler, the maiden
The mender and the maker
The sickener and the twitcher
And the glad undertaker
The shepherd of willows
The harper and the archer
All sat down in one boat together
Troubled voyage in calm weather.
 
 
Greatest Friend
By Mike Heron
 
Mike: guitar and harmonica
 
The greatest friend I have in life
Has brought me here to dwell
Awhile among your green green hills
All by the watery well
The water from that wondrous well
Has made my eyes to see
And loosed my tongue to sing with joy
That such a griend can be
The greatest friend I have in life
Was hidden long from me
Above the mountains cold and wide
Beneath the sacred tree
That sacred tree whose bark I touched
Whose leaves did tell to me
The ancient tales that made me sure
My friend would come to me
 
My greatest friend a song has given
To sing where I may go
To sing among the green green hills
And where the waters flow
The waters from that wondrous well
That made my eyes to see
And made my mind to ever show
My greatest friend to me.
 
 
The son of Noah's brother
By Robin Williamson
 
Robin: guitar
Mike: organ
 
Many were the lifetimes of the Son of Noah's brother
See his coat the ragged riches of the soul
 
 
Lordly Nightshade
By Robin Williamson
 
Robin: guitar, piano, drums, whistle
Mike: percussion
 
Captured by Hitler with Oliver Twist in the tower
Guards say here's pens and paper just sit down and work for an hour
O, Goodness, how can we escape? but it's not worthwhile
All I can do is smile.
 
Down gallons of glandular corridors of the dark castle
The pompous old bellman is tolling one bell
At bathtime the hippies in chains they are crossing the hall
Where Hitler is making his new film about it all
We slip trough a pew and escape but I just don't know
All I can do is grow
 
 
Tell me more, what then
 
Down Main Street I go on a duffel-coat hoping instead
For a little room, yawn, I'm so tired with this big bag of coal on my head
It's a top hat I'm trying to sell or a lesson to learn
Vaguely seeking some fire to burn
 
While a group of middle-aged persons with dwarfish expressions and tinned conversations in Sunday blessed blue
Standing around for a photograph, watch the cuckoo
Do you need any coal? But it doesn't appear that they do
Then I offered my throat to the wolf but I just can't die
All I can do is fly
 
Safe and secure in the skirts of the midsummer wood
Cooking soup with stale words and fresh meanings it tastes so good
The green wolf with his bunch of red roses is slinking away
All on a summer's day.
 
 
The mountain of God
By Robin Williamson
 
Robin: organ
 
"Behold the mountain of the Lord in latter days shall rise"
 
"Hark, the herald angels sing"
 
"Hush, hush, whisper who dare, Christopher Robin is saying his prayers"
 
"Do ye not fly as clouds and as doves to your windows
Who serve as the shadow and the example of heavenly things"
 
"As Moses was admonished of God as he was making the Tabernacle
See that ye do all things according to the pattern shown you on the high mountain."
 
"Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost
As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be
World without end
Amen."
 
 
Cousin Caterpillar
By Mike Heron
 
Mike: guitar
Robin: bass
Rose: percussion
 
My cousin has great changes coming
One day he'll wake with wings
 
Cousin Caterpillar, seven pairs of legs for you
Cousin Caterpillar, can you tell me what they do?
 
Well, all that I can say
Is that they seem to help some way
To pull my little body along
 
Well first I didn't know their use
But worrying you only lose
So I said I love you and I love what you do
Come on do your thing
 
Cousin Caterpillar, white and silky threads for you
Cousin Caterpillar, can you tell me what they do?
 
My cousin as you see
Takes his changes easily
O happy we
Could we take each change so easily
Then all that we could say
Is that it would seem to help some way
To pull our little bodies along
So we say I love you and I love what you do
Come on do your thing
 
 
The Iron Stone
By Robin Williamson
 
Robin: guitar
Mike: sitar
Rose: percussion
Licorice: irish harp, percussion
 
A long wind a weaving mind
Over all the land the wild flowers grow,
Echoing kind to kind
On that day when I found the iron stone
Heavy in my hand in the sloping rain
Ever the seas rolled on and o'er my heart
They roofed their slates of grey
 
The iron stone I found it on that day
 
The iron stone I brought it home
Heavy in my hand I brought it home
Black as the thoughts of doom
A man told me it came from the moon
Flying through time it flew
Upon the long beach where I found it
Dancing horses told their tale
Among the stones it called me
There my hand it knew
Seeing in the thickness of the thick black sight
Forests and centaurs and gods of the night
Never that sun shone on
Where high Atlantis raised her shores
How sang the dragons of the sea
 
Love paints the carts with suns for wheels
The jester's bauble, cap and bells
The brave, perhaps, Mustachio
Sir Primalform Magnifico
The dragon me with golden toes
And golden fire my flaming nose
And memories, memories
 
My cave was bright with sulky gems
That paled the stars like diadems
Silver lost and buried gold
Such was my home in days of old.
 
 
Douglas Traherne Harding
By Mike Heron
 
Mike: guitar
Robin: violin, percussion, whistle
 
When I was born I had no head
My eye was single and my body was filled with light
And the light that I was, was the light that I saw by
And the light that I saw by, was the light that I was
 
And many's the time that I've passed by the river
And saw no tollman and needed no ferryman to cross
And I enjoyed the world aright
For the sea itself floweth
And warm I was and crowned.
 
But one day walking by the river
I met a tollman with an angry face
And many's the time I passed through his tollgate
And paid no silver and paid no fee
But rather I did hide my sheep and goats under the bags of oatmeal
And cold I was, no crown did I wear
 
But if you're walking down the street
Why don't you look down to the basement
And sitting very quietly there is a man who has no head
His eye is single and his whole body also is filled with light
 
And the streets are his and all the people
And even the temples and the whole world
And many's the time he walks to the river
And seeing the ferryman and seeing the tollman
The light within him leaps to greet them
For he sees that their faces are none but his own
 
 
One light, the light that is one though the lamps be many
 
 
You never enjoy the world aright
"Till the sea itself floweth
In your veins and you are clothed
With the heavens and crowned with the stars"
 
 
The circle is unbroken
By Robin Williamson
 
Robin: whistle, irish harp
Mike: organ
 
Seasons they change while cold blood is raining
I have been waiting beyond the years
Now over the skyline I see you're travelling
Brothers from all time gathering here
Come let us build the ship of the future
In an ancient pattern that journeys far
Come let us set sail for the always island
Through seas of leaving to the summer stars
 
Seasons they change but with gaze unchanging
O deep eyed sisters is it you I see?
Seeds of beauty ye bear within you
Of unborn children glad and free
Within your fingers the fates are spinning
The sacred binding of the yellow grain
Scattered we were when the long night was breaking
But in the bright morning converse again.
 
 
The Head
By Robin Williamson
 
Only a palace with interior doors
Well painted well gargoyled with multiple floors
Two windows let free this projector machine
and the magical world here appears on the screen
My servants attend me with tricks of the senses
The past and the future and similar tenses
and on platters of air they convey me my measure
both gladness and sorrow, I lack not for treasure
 
The lord and his lady are seated within
In the court of the mind where the song does begin
The song is as fine is as fine is as follows
The song does continue through measureless hollows
that sink from the level of personal being
through caverns of darkness where dragons
are dwelling
 
The mountains above them are raised at my calling
Where the apples are ripe or the rain is a-falling
 
In ships of white vision I sail the horizon
where three spinners stand beyond the
horizon under the tree of the apples of beauty
I watch them arranging my days and tomorrows
The song is as fine is as fine as it follows
 
I stood on the beach where the moon was a-curling
Laughed on the wings of the sea birds calling
I loved when sweet Venus a lover did bring me
I cried when sweet Saturn and Jupiter moved us
and all of my servants were fighting their brothers
And the lord and the lady they hated each other
Till the spinners arose with their work on their fingers
Commanding the presence of Heavenly singers
That spoke of the silence so soon to be coming
When all would be still in the wonderful palace
The peace is not stillness but peacefully changing
This hope is the hope of the man on the gallows
The song is as fine is as fine is as follows
 
The infant I was in the womb of my mother
White sperm I was in the loins of my father
Before that I swam in the oceans of nowhere
Where the fish are as fine as the colour of colours
Where waves are the message of centuries rolling
Where wind is the breath of the Holy Creator
Where no ship sails but only the ocean
Where all the rivers grow mighty with showing
And crowned with the gifts of the myriad valleys
Return with a sigh to the sea of the coming
Forever and ever and ever and ever be glad O be
Glad for the song has no ending.
 

Back