The Hermit Lyrics

The Hermit Lyrics

[Instrumental]

[Verse 1]
I'm awake, but I can’t yet see
An eager chiffchaff is heralding me
The image starts to form
Of a four-poster bed sprung in the clots of a riverbed

And the claviger knows
When the beaded shoots go
Through the arid intestines of my bowels
Among the mazed roots of rowan as I pass my waste
Vaporous shafts of a burgeoning sun
Skewer the forest floor onto a world
Fresh-begun, all in the name of the harvest
I.e.: our ever on-rushing plasma

Shadows of leaves
Mottlеd by the cleaves
Of catеrpillars' hardened mandibles
Form a basket weave of blowing math [?]
The bluebells in bud

Laymen smoke
A scarlet-embroidered mantua
Descend from elder branches, shined with dew
To settle onto my body
A little emerald brooch
Unclasps itself from moss
To alight upon my breast
I step into a slipper pair
Exquisite replicas of those worn by Ada
The enchantress of numbers

[Verse 2]
Two swallowed cups
Of pureed bilberries
Which grow in abundance
By the corn mill ruins
One hungers
For nothing

[Verse 3]
Now let's follow
These tracks ever-fallow, dear
Sentences of clay leading away from here

Out of the [?]
And over a tall zebra vanishes
The black horseshoe rump and tattered tail into a gossamer veil

[Verse 4]
At the heather
Tousled crest of Yeavering bell
We may enter
A stone beacon tower
From which the eye may hold
A whole sweep of the kingdom

Hazy marshes
Crow-pocked copses
Patchwork meadows
Labyrinthed with hedgerows
Gentely declining
To a fluff of woodsmoke
Clung to the fringe
Of the North Sea
The village of Beba
Where once I lived a fisher
Before I was forced to flee

[Verse 5]
One fair morn wrapped in a shawl of sorrow
Lives, I gathered, in my pots of white-clawed crayfish
From those sucking sands
Did I make my way, dripping, to the kitchen door of the Cross Keys

Young Charlie Wheatstone, the innkeeper’s lad
With the same star-shaped birthmark as his dad
Set square on his chin
Gave me a shy hail [?]
[?]
Into a pewter trough

The forlorn brewer
Lacking ample coin
Apologised with a token of grubs on a stick
And suggested payment take the form
Of an upgrade to my visual, perceptual cortexes
Back in the throes of my [?]
A [?] chamber
Off the cliff-grazing tunnels
Beneath the floor
[?]

And disappear
Into a dream of [?]
A hundred billion voices echo [?]
Still ringing in my ears
As I went, [?] in hand
Through the bog of names
Upon entering a blossom grove
I went into total spasm
As a storm of info broke abrubtly across my retinas

I came around
To an enhanced perception
Of every lifeform
Within a ten-yard radius
Each throbbed with it's own aurora

[Verse 6]
Utterly awed
I'd inadvertently drawn to my mind's eye
A lone Ashy Miner Bee
As if to a plate under a microscope

I sobbed as I zoomed among
Individual hairs on its forelegs and face
I'd stare for a long time into the ommatidia

Performing a scan
On a cache of False Death Caps
I found I could retrace the history all the way back to manufacture

Slippery Jack
Amethyst Deceiver
Fairy Rings, Penny Buns, Hen of the Wood

I was amazed
Scrolling not only the fungus's since yesterdays
But also their myriad yet-bloomed tomorrow

[Verse 7]
With a burden of redcurrants
And wild garlic at my elbow
I wearily made my way
Along Crackpool Burn
Joining the Coast Road at Glororum

Up ahead I could see what
Looked to be a robot, knelt in the lane
Revealed at a higher magnification
As a gilt-clad knight of old
Submerged at the waist in unyielding concrete
Flailing his arms to a windmill of gold

Lifting up the poor soul's visor
My gaze met with a mask of
Vein-popping fury - or was it abject fear?
Gasping the chivalric oath

Then it was over, he split asunder
Gleaming armour dissolving to reveal
The apprentice of Godwin the Whitesmith
A merest sliver of a man
Stooped to retrieve the platinum from his mouth
I heard halted hooves in the dust, and the cry:
"Murderer!"

[Chorus: Richard Dawson & Chorus]
Tiny cobles out at sea
A black wall of cloud in the east
And a taper of rainbow
Faintly aglow
Amidst their wakes

Tiny cobles out at sea
A black wall of cloud in the east
And a taper of rainbow
Faintly aglow
Amidst their wakes

Tiny cobles out at sea
A black wall of cloud in the east
And a taper of rainbow
Faintly aglow
Amidst their wakes

Tiny cobles out at sea
A black wall of cloud in the east
And a taper of rainbow
Faintly aglow
Amidst their wakes

Tiny cobles out at sea
A black wall of cloud in the east
And a taper of rainbow
Faintly aglow
Amidst their wakes

Tiny cobles out at sea
A black wall of cloud in the east
And a taper of rainbow
Faintly aglow
Amidst their wakes

[Instrumental Break]

[Chorus: Richard Dawson & Chorus]
Tiny cobles out at sea
A black wall of cloud in the east
And a taper of rainbow
Faintly aglow
Amidst their wakes