Anecdotes

 Ab           Eb         Db
 Sending the first scouts over
 Ab              Eb        Db
 Back from the place beyond the dawn:
 Ab               Eb    Db
 Horse, bear your broken soldier
 Ab          Eb     Db
 Eyes frozen wide at what went on
     Ab            Eb     Db
 And Time, in our camp, is moving
Ab          Eb   Db
 As you’d anticipate it to
     Ab            Eb   Db
 But what is this sample proving?
 Ab        Eb      Bb               Db
 Anecdotes cannot say what Time may do


 Db Fm Eb Ab Eb Db C G Am G


 C          Bb     Ab    G
 I kid with Rufus  Night-jar
          Fm           Ab
 When our men are all asleep:
     C      Bb       Ab       G
 It ain’t about how rare you are
         Fm              Ab
 But how hard you are to see
Eb             Ab  Db
 Take, you and me—
  F                   C
 “When are you from?” said he
        Am             G
 In our blind of winter leaves


       F#m               G
 As we sighted out their fliers
        F#m              G
 In the greyscale of the night
     F#m            G
 And fumbled on the bare ground
    F#m         G
 To bury round landmines
           A F# Bm C               D   Bb
 While the deeeeeew lay down and dried


 D Bb D Bb C


 C         Bb      Ab  G
 We signal Private Poorwill
      Fm                Ab
 When morning starts to loom:
  C        Bb       Ab     G
 “Pull up from your dive!” till,
    Fm                Ab            Eb          Ab    Db
 We hear the telltale boom too soon, hotdogging loon,
 F                  C         Am       G
 caught there Like a shard of mirror in the moon!


     F#m                    G
 Now they’ve stopped giving orders
       F#m        G
 But I follow anyway
 F#m             G
 Laying in our state of torpor
 F#m              G
 Waiting out the day
           A F# Bm C       D   Bb
 While the deeeeeew burns away


 D Bb D Bb Ab G


 Fm       Eb        Bb      Db
 Rushing, tearing, speeding home:
 Fm         Eb            Bb     Db
 Bound to a wheel that is not my own
       Fm          Eb   Bb        Db
 Where round every bend I long to see
 Fm       Eb  Bb   Db
 Temporal infidelity


 Fm            Eb         Bb           Db
 All along the road, the lights stream by
 Fm        Eb           Bb         Db
 I want to go where the dew won’t dry
 Fm        Eb           Bb         Db
 I want to go where the light won’t bend—
  Fm        Eb       Bb      Db
 Far as the eye may reach—nor end


      Fm  Eb       Bb            Db
 But, inasmuch as that light is loaned
      Fm  Eb     Bb             Db
 And, insofar as we’ve borrowed bones
 Fm         Eb       Bb    Db
 Must every debt now be repaid
     Fm           Eb      Bb           Db
 In star-spotted, sickle-winged night raids
          Fm          Eb             Bb            Db
 While we sing to the garden, and we sing to the stars
Fm                  Eb           Bb       Db
 And we sing in the meantime wherever you are?


        Fm            Eb        Bb              Db
 In the folds and the branches somewhere out there
Fm           Eb         Bb      Db
 I was only just born into open air
     Fm           Eb        Bb              Db
 Now hush, little babe, you don’t want to be
 Fm          Eb         Bb              Db
 Down in the trenches remembering with me


       Ab            Eb    Db
 Where you will not mark my leaving
Ab                 Eb            Db
 And you will not hear my parting song
 Ab            Eb      Db
 Nor is there cause for grieving
 Ab            Eb        Bb
 Nor is there cause for carrying on
     Ab             Eb     Db
 And daughter, when you are able
 Ab            Eb            Db
 Come down and join! The kettle’s on
           Ab       Eb        Db
 And your family’s round the table
Ab            Eb       Bb             Db
 Will you come down, before the sun is gone?


 Db Fm Eb Ab Eb Db C G Am G

 F#m G (x4)

 A F# Bm C

 D Bb D Bb D Bb