AmEGF
Allelu, allelu:
Am
I have died happy,
EGF
and lived to tell the tale to you.
Am
I have slept for forty years,
EGF
and woke to find me gone.
AmGF
I woke safe and warm in your arms.
C (C7)
In your arms
FDm
Your arms
GCB/C
In your arms
AmEGF
Not informed of the natural law,
AmE
squatting, lordly, on a stool, in a stall,
GF
we spun gold clear out of straw.
AmE
And, when our bales of bullion
G
were stored,
F
you burned me like a barn.
AmGF
I burned safe and warm in your arms.
C (C7)
In your arms
F
Your arms
DmA
I'm afraid of the Big Return.
DC#/DBmG
There's a certain conversation lost,
F#B
and that loss incurred
D
with nobody remaining,
EAmBbA
to register who had passed this way,
D
in the night,
DC#/DBm
in the middle of the night
GF#B7
(negating their grace and their sight),
DE
till only I remember, or mark,
AmE
how we had our talk:
GF
We took our ride,
Am
so that there was no-one home,
EG
and the lights of Rome
F
flickered and died.
And, what's more,
AmE
I believe that you knew it, too;
GF
I think you saw their flares,
AmGF
and kept me safely unawares,
C (C7)
in your arms.
FDm
In your arms
GCB/C
In your arms.
AmEGF
The grass was tall, and strung with burrs,
Am
I essayed that high sashay which,
EG
in my mind, was my way;
F
you hung behind, in yours.
AmE
Anyhow, she did not neigh.
I do not know
GF
what drew our eyes to hers;
AmGF
that little black mare did not stir,
CF
till I lay down in your arms.
DmAD
Poor old dirty little dog-size horse!—
C#/DBmG
swaying and wheezing,
F#B
as a matter of course;
DE
swaying and wheezing,
AmBb
as a matter of pride.
ADC#/DBm
That poor old nag, not four palms wide,
GF#B7
had waited a long time,
DE
coated in salt,
AmBbAD
buckled like a ship run foul of the fence.
DC#/DBm
In the middle of the night,
G
she'd sprung up,
F#B
no provenance,
DEAm
bearing the whites of her eyes.
Bb
And you, with your
AD
'arrangement' with Fate,
C#/DBm
nodded sadly at her lame assault
GF#B
on that steady old gate,
DEAmE
her faultlessly etiolated fishbelly-face;
GF
the muzzle of a ghost.
Am
And, pretty Johnny Appleseed,
E
via satellite feed,
G
tell us, who was it
F
that you then loved the most?
Am
Pretty Johnny Appleseed,
EG
leave a trail that leads
F
straight back down to the farm.
Lay me down
AmGF
safe and warm in your arms.
AmGA
In your arms.