Joanna Newsom - Time, As a Symptom lyrics

(Mourning Dove calls)

Time passed hard
And the task was the hardest
Thing she'd ever do but she forgot
The moment she saw you

So it would seem to be true:
When cruel birth debases, we forget
When cruel death debases
We believe it erases all the rest
That precedes but stand brave, life-liver
Bleeding out your days in the river of time
Stand brave: Time moves both ways

In the nullifying, defeating, negating
Repeating joy of life
The nullifying, defeating, negating
Repeating joy of life

The moment of your greatest joy sustains:
Not axe nor hammer tumor, tremor
Can take it away, and it remains it remains

And it pains me to say, I was wrong
Love is not a symptom of time
Time is just a symptom of love

(and the nullifying, defeating, negating
Repeating joy of life
The nullifying, defeating, negating
Repeating joy of life)
Hardly seen, hardly felt–
Deep down where your fight is waiting
Down 'till the light in your eyes is fading:
Joy of life where I know that you can yield
When it comes down to it
Bow like the field when the
Wind combs through it: Joy of life
And every little gust that chances through
Will dance in the dust of me and you
With joy-of-life
And in our perfect secret-keeping:
One ear of corn in silent, reaping
Joy of life

Joy! Again, around–a pause, a sound–a song:
A way a lone a last a loved a long
A cave, a grave, a day: arise, ascend
(Areion, Rharian, go free and graze amen)

A shore, a tide, unmoored–a sight, abroad:
A dawn, unmarked, undone, undarked (a god)
No time no flock no chime, no clock no end
White star, white ship–Nightjar
Transmit: transcend!

White star, white ship–Nightjar
Transmit: transcend!
White star, white ship–Nightjar
Transmit: transcend!
White star, white ship–Nightjar
Transmit: trans-