Times come and times go
And everything that seemed eternal
Becomes a whisper, an echo,
A reminder of old songs that seemed timeless.
Great stories and great men
Grace the pages of time.
They have always been great
In their places and ages
But fade tomorrow, ever so more and more.
Loves that would never die
Dwell somewhere out there
Continuing on forever, unseen,
Forgotten as much as ancient beasts never seen
By the eyes of men.
Is it mockery, or some farce?
Is all naught, and is there not more?
For it was the bard who sang a song of
Never ending love, singing
Some sweet tune of Love’s
Uncompromising power.
The old songs become wearisome
And all the odes of old
Have become tired and fatigued.
They have said it all
And all over again.
There is nothing new under the Sun,
Nor the moon and stars
When speaking of the hearts of men.
Wars and love are all our songs
And nothing new ever comes.
The same words keep coming back
To tell the same stories that differ
Only in time and place and name—
The theme and all our dreams
Can never change when the composers
Remain ever the same.
The grandest chorus ever written
Will be nothing more than what
We have already heard.
It will be clothed in something fancy,
Uplifting in its rhythm and beat;
It will take us to some far distant world
Of glory and valor and love,
And it will make us want to fight
For great causes.
But then the music will fade
And the dream will stop,
And we will remember again
That we are only humans.
We fight and we love,
And we dream and hope.
But our music cannot go higher
Than what we really are, not really:
Certainly it cannot take us beyond
The realm of our souls.
Only something that has already seen
Another world, felt it and held it
Can give us a song that is not old and tired.
Our ballads are all exhausted melodies.