A young maiden sits all alone in her room,
White as a lily her skin.
Weaving her sighs in the threads of her loom,
Solitude pricks like a pin.
While suitors line up bearing daisies and plums,
She gives a wane smile, but sullen becomes
For she knows that the one that she loves never comes...
The Mandolin Minstrel, he rides!
Blankets of loneliness draped on her bed
Smother the embers of youth.
Desire is the flour she bakes in her bread,
Lost between passion and truth.
She waits for a man only seen in her dreams
To steal her away over valleys and streams
But if only her love were as real as he seems...
The Mandolin Minstrel, he rides!
Spring is the ship that founders upon the proud main,
Fall is the ghost that suffers by lantern and chain
And if summer's the fool with his cap and his spool
And his spool...
Eternity winter enshrouds
Then one day she cries out "May tears be my gown!"
When half-whispered ballads reply.
And on the horizon, the sun as his crown,
Could it be that my minstrel draws nigh
Drifts 'neath her window the strains of his song.
But he gazes not up, spurs his horse and rides on
Like a phantom he came, like a dream he was gone!
The Mandolin Minstrel, he rides!
The Mandolin Minstrel,
The Mandolin Minstrel, he rides!
(Jeff Kleiner - co-author)
Copyright 1997 Zach London