The Faded Mansion On The Hill

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   When you see what can't be helped go by
   With bloody murder in its eye
   And the mouth of a man put on the rack
   The voice of a man about to crack

   When you see the litter of their lives
   The stupid children, bitter wives
   Your self-esteem in disarray
   You do your best to climb away
   From the streaming traffic of decay

   Believing if you will that all these sick hate days
   Are just a kind of trick Fate plays
   But still behind your shaded eyes
   That mind-constricting thick weight stays

   When on the outskirts of the town
   Comes bumping cavernously down
   Out of the brick gateways
   From the faded mansion on the hill
   The out-of-date black Cadillac
   With the old man crumpled in the back
   That Time has not yet found the time to kill

Between the headlands to the sea the fleeing yachts of summer go
White as a sheet and faster than the driven snow
Like dolphins riding high and giant seabirds flying low

And square across the wind the cats and wingsails pull ahead
Living their day as if it almost could be said
The cemetery of home could somehow soon be left for dead

   But the graveyard of tall ships is really here
   Where the grass breaks up the driveway more each year
   And here is all these people have
   And everything they can't believe
   The beach the poor men never reach
   The shore the rich men never leave

Between the headlands from the sea the homing yachts of summer fill
The night with shouts and falling sails and then are still
The avenues wind up into the darkness of the hill
Where Time tonight might find the time to kill

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