When She Comes

(Hammill)

Slow motion in the quiet of the room;
so potent is the smell of her perfume
that you think she's eternal,
that you think she is everything...
but no-one knows what she is.
Repentance for all you should have said;
her entrance seems to raise you from the dead
and you think she's really with you,
and you think that she'll always stay,
always ready to forgive you,
always ready to grant you her mercy
but in her own way.
When she comes, she'll be a stranger;
struck dumb, you'll try to protest
as the drum beats out the danger...
too late, you should have noticed
that the lady with the skin so white,
like something out of Blake or Burne-Jones
always blocked out the light
and shadowed all you owned.

Still you think she's forever,
yesterday and tomorrow...
but no-one knows where she is.
Still you swear that you can win her
and your prayer is that she'll want you;
aware - once a saint, now you're a sinner
and your sins are going to haunt you
when the lady with her skin so white
like something out of Edgar Allan Poe
holds your hand so very tight
and you hope that she'll never let go.

Easy targets, easy crosswords, easy life:
these key margins leave you balanced on the knife,
bleeding darkly.
In the end it all comes down to sleazy bargains.
That hidden key - you tried so hard to find it,
all you can conceive is the effort to be worthy;
even now you need to be reminded
that La Belle Dame is without mercy.
The lady with her skin so white -
you never did quite catch her name -
now she holds you in the night
and she'll never let go again,
she'll never let go again.