Son said my mother when I was knee high
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You need of clothes to cover you and not a rag have I
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There's nothing in the house to make a boy's britches
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Nor shears to cut a cloth with nor thread to take stitches
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There's nothing in the house but a leaf end of rye
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And the harp with a with the woman's head nobody will by and she began to cry
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That was in the early fall and when came the late fall
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Son she said the sight of you makes your mother's blood crawl
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Little skinny shoulder blades stickin' through your clothes
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And where you get a jacket from God above knows
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It's lucky for me lad your daddy's in the ground
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And can't see the way I let his son go around and she made a queer sound
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That was in the late fall when the winter came
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I'd not a pair of britches nor a shirt to my name
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I couldn't go to school or out of doors to play
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And all the other little boys passed our way
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Son said my mother come climb into my lap
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And I'll chave your little knees while you take a nap
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And oh but we were silly for half an hour or more
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Me with my long legs draggin' on the floor
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I rocked rocked rocked to a mother goose rhyme
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Oh but we were happy for half an hour's time
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But there was I a great boy and what would folks say
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To hear my mother singin' me to sleep all day in such a daft way
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Men say the winter was bad that year fuel was scarce and food was dear
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A wind with a wolf's head howled about our door
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And we burned up the chairs and sat upon the floor
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All that was left us was a chair we couldn't break
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And the harp with the woman's head nobody would take for song or pity sake
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The night before Christmas I cried with the cold
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I cried myself to sleep like a two year old
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And in the deep night I felt my mother rise
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And stare down upon me with love in her eyes
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I saw my mother sitting on the one good chair
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A light falling on her face from I couldn't tell where
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Looking nineteen and not a day older
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And the harp with the woman's head leaned against her shoulder
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Her thin fingers moving in the thin tall strings
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Were weave weave weaving wonderful things
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Many bright threads from where I couldn't see
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Were running through the harp strings rapidly
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And gold threads whistlin' through my mother's hands
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I saw the web grow and the pattern expand
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She wove a child's jacket and when it was done
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She laid it on the floor and wove another one
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She wove a red cloak so regal to see
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She's made it for a king's son I said and not for me but I knew it was for me
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She wove a pair of britches and quicker than that
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She wove a pair of boots a little cocked hat
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She wove a pair of mittens she wove a little blouse
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She wove all night in the still cold house
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She sang as she worked and the harp strings spoke
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But her voice never faltered and the thread never broke
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But when I awoke there sat my mother
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With the harp against her shoulder lookin' nineteen and not a day older
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A smile about her lips and a light about her head
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And her hands in the harp strings frozen dead
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And piled up beside her toppling to the skies
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Were the clothes of a king's son just my size
|
|
-----------------
|
Ballad Of The Harp Weaver
|
| Johnny Cash |
