Viking Heart - Jane Siberry

Can you see who it might be?

Tell old man to ring the bell

Climb the steps up from the sea

Strange and dark and very tall

Can you see who it might be?

Visitors — they are so few

Head so proud but curls so free

Looks like someone I once knew

David — of the Viking heart

Glitter of the sea

It couldn’t

It wouldn’t

It daren’t be The men they see him up the coast

At the drinking house of Morley Arms

Hails the sea with every toast

and he hails the ladies with his charms

All the ladies he does love

Each day I saw his bosom swell

He’s not like me — I love but one

And I love that one and I know him well

Ah — but all the love

In the world was not enough

So I couldn’t

I wouldn’t

I daren’t say no David — how you made me feel

Every crack in every wall

Climb above the traps of man

Shout above the sirens call

But now the siren’s all you hear

Shamed and dizzy you can’t stop

All the things we used to fear

Are you spinning — little top?

The strangeness of it all

Is you know yourself so well

But you couldn’t

You wouldn’t

You daren’t say no Signs of you — they disappeared

Poems and candles — I don’t need

Flowers that you brought to me Fell into a book I never read

I cut my hair off like a man

Too much trouble and what’s more

It was tarnished by your hand

Gone my hair… into a drawer

I said — should you leave?

and you — you just agreed

so we couldn’t

we wouldn’t

we daren’t say no now I have been a woman true

taking all that life does send

I thought I could love just you

but the heart does sway and the body does bend

tales of you sometimes they come

I smile and nod quite naturally

my thoughts so rarely to you run

I watch the glitter of the sea

can you see who it might be?

tell old man to ring the bell

climb the steps up from the sea

I cannot see — I know him well

David of the Viking heart

glitter of the sea

it couldn’t

it wouldn’t

it daren’t be