Our Mother The Mountain

By townes van zandt

My lover comes to me with a rose on her bosom
The moon's dancin' purple
All through her black hair
And a ladies-in-waiting she stands 'neath my window
And the sun will rise soon
On the false and the fair


She tells me she comes from my mother the mountain
Her skin fits her tightly
And her lips do not lie
She silently slips from her throat a medallion
Slowly she twirls it
In front of my eyes


I watch her, i love her, i long for to touch her
The satin she's wearin'
Is shimmering blue
Outside my window her ladies are sleeping
My dogs have gone hunting
The howling is through


So i reach for her hand and her eyes turns to poison
And her hair turns to splinters,
And her flesh turns to brine
She leaps cross the room, she stands in the window
And screams that my first-born
Will surely be blind


She throws herself out to the black of the nightfall
She's parted her lips
But she makes not a sound
I fly down the stairway, and i run to the garden
No trace of my true love
Is there to be found


So walk these hills lightly, and watch who you're lovin'
By mother the mountain
I swear that it's true
Love not a woman with hair black as midnight
And her dress made of satin
All shimmering blue