In The End (2006 Digital Remaster)

In The End (2006 Digital Remaster) - Peter Hammill

I promise you I won't leave a clue:

Tell-tale remark print from my shoe

Still a steady trail to the water's edge

I will keep my pledge to the end;

I intend to go free

No more rushing around no more travelling chess;

I guess I'd better sit down you know I do need the rest

Yes it's time to resign with equanimity and placidity

From the game

I can't explain

I can't relate

I done it all too late

Now is the time for the commission to report;

Till lately I thought: I'd been planted

Trying hard to make it all come real

Permission to feel is ungranted

But now it's happening I'd like to keep it private if I can;

Last words last look make a final stand

Now my number's come up on the Pools

Guess I'll board Titanic for a cruise

Now is the time to make my status clear

Too late I fear and lonely

As friends and enemies traverse the stage

All in a rage disown me

And all the pip-props shatter into dust about my ears;

Memory and conscience hope and fear

As I crawl out further on the limb

Something tells me I am crawling in

To unknown prophecies and lives

The rainbow's end is hemmed around with knives

As I stand on the boards and the stage lights grow dim

Shall I go out of doors or shall I maybe go in

Have I reached the point when I should take my cue

And follow you and your signs

I can't remember my line

At the prompter cat calls

And the cards all fall

In the strike

All the pages are thin all the corners are curled

Does the starshine fall in through my window on the world

Or am I living our (the seeds of doubt) a chronicle of revenge

The willow bends

As do my hands

Do your understand

And will you still be my friend in the end

When my mouth falls slack

And I can't summon up another tune

Shall I then look back and say

I did it all

Too soon