A Smiling Shore - June Tabor

So he found his way

To the smiling shore

A year or two

From a strange war

The gentle lies

To dying eyes

A thousand miles of walking

Old man talking

Last night I heard him shouting in his sleep

He doesn’t eat

Someday in November

Every night for forty years

My father still remembers

For this is his kingdom, his home

And his story will lost in the struggle

For thou and glory inside him

The final solution

To no one’s problem

Friends and lovers in stinking rows

Avoiding their eyes

Checking their numbers

Burning their clothes

Soul survivor

You wouldn’t even see him in a crowd

The family man waits in a cube to draw his pension

Facing memories of a life

He can’t bring himself to mention