Birthday Song

Happy day! For a birthday song;
My kindly mother-friend lifelong.
We celebrate another year:
A celebration of good-cheer!

I’d give you trees of sapphire fruit;
I’d play for you a magic flute;
I’d pluck from heaven all her stars,
‘Til in our joined hands they’re ours.

My only gift in poverty -
A song to sing your charity,
That loads with gifts my sunlit way
To celebrate this summer day.

Happy day! For a birthday song;
Through the beautiful days and long,
The seasons brought another year,
But still the happy summer’s here!

I love you!

_______________________
By Jeffrey S. Merk

Wildflower

　
There was hid a green and rocky valley
Where wandered ‘round a lonely alley
By quiet laughing stream you stood apart
Delighting in the day like summers’ heart

Wildflower, Soul amazed I came to you
To touch your velvet face and trembling dew
To gently lean upon your naked breast
Your kindly charity that offers rest

To touch the rose I grasp the thorn with joy
A thousand ships sunk for Helen of Troy
The angels envy me my every pain -
It teaches me to sing you sooth refrain

Immortal I, to see you dreaming by
Beneath the pure vault of the azure sky
My life was resurrected with the dawn
To live beyond the hour when day is gone

Solo
In your eye I behold divinity
The depth and height of our infinity
Thank-you for your beauty, my youthful rose
And bloom for ever in your soft repose

________________________
Copyright Jeffrey S. Merk 2013

Crooked River

I was a child but I have grown
Your quiet house is all I’ve known
The shadowed peach-tree in the yard
The killing rain we took too hard

  And now I must cry
  And embrace you
  And wave good-bye

I float down Crooked River
All alone on Crooked River
Carry me home on Crooked River
Yes, carry me home

I see you smiling standing there
I see a rainbow in your hair
But I must turn my back and go
The swans are calling deep and low

  And now I must cry
  And embrace you
  And wave good-bye

I float down Crooked River
All alone on Crooked River
Carry me home on Crooked River
Yes, carry me home

Solo
We’ll meet again just you and I
Immortal love can never die
The shadowed peach-tree in the yard
And rain will never fall so hard

  And now I must cry
  And embrace you
  And wave good-bye

I float down Crooked River
All alone on Crooked River
Carry me home on Crooked River
Yes, carry me home

Haunting Melody

She sat at her piano singing
Through the evening hours
In our mansion by the sea
Surrounded by the flowers
  Every window opened wide
  Flame-light burning deep inside
This leaped from her to pierce me -
  She sang a haunting melody!
And as she sang I saw her eyes
Intermixed with dark and bright
Whose marriage brought soft sighs
And sweetness to the night
  And as I looked I met her gaze
  And saw her eyes become ablaze
Our world was changed so blessedly -
  She sang a haunting melody!

Solo
She sang, “The shadow is upon me!
It’s hand grips me at my naked breast;
For I suffer deeply to be free,
While my soul requires simple rest.”
  And through the power of her voice
  My soul was left without a choice
Her magic tune that set me free -
  She sang a haunting melody!

See Lucifer Who Proudly Fell

See Lucifer who proudly fell
Driven o’er Heavens wall
To the flaming deeps of Hell
With the rebel angels all
  Chained upon the burning lake
  A dream from which no one shall wake!

The serpent in the garden sweet
To whom Adam and Eve gave heed
Omnipotence can but defeat
The willfulness of wicked greed
  So see the falling of their kind
  Into the place no one can find!

Solo
The only sin against mankind
The working of a faithless heart
That fraudulent of thinking mind
Must to the waste alone depart
  The further that your footsteps lead
  The worse your soul shall come to need!

Solo

See Lucifer who proudly fell
Driven o’er Heavens wall
To the flaming deeps of Hell
With the rebel angels all
  Chained upon the burning lake
  A dream from which no one shall wake!

Nightingales

Beloved, let us walk by spark ‘ling streams
Upon the flowered valley green and wild
Our footsteps lead us through beautiful dreams
Of spring, provoking those still like a child

  See the Nightingales - Circling in the cool of the day
  See the Nightingales - Circling in the cool of the day

Beloved, let us work the golden fields
Discovering what summers’ toil yields
And rest in shade of laden apple-trees
Hand in hand caressed by whisper'd breeze


  See the Nightingales - Circling in the cool of the day
  See the Nightingales - Circling in the cool of the day

Beloved, let us press fruit of the vine
And drink cups of intoxicating wine
Dry leaves are fluttering and falling down
To find their place of rest upon the ground

  See the Nightingales - Circling in the cool of the day
  See the Nightingales - Circling in the cool of the day

Solo
Beloved, when we’re bent before the fire
Let our love become our funeral pyre
Smile with me. Let my fingers wipe your tears
And sweetly sing the story of our years

  See the Nightingales - Circling in the cool of the day
  See the Nightingales - Circling in the cool of the day

______________________
Copyright Jeffrey Merk 2013