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AL STEWART:



"It seems to me as though I've been upon this stage before

And juggled away the night for the same old crowd

These harlequins you see with me, they too have held the floor

As here once again they strut and they fret their hour

I see those half-familiar faces in the second row

Ghost-like with the footlights in their eyes

But where or when we met like this last time I just don't know

It's like a chord that rings and never dies

For infinity..."

            -- Lines from Al Stewart's song "On Stage Before"



It seems as though even I have been,

Upon this stage before,

Laughing and whiling away the hours,

I cared the least about my fears

For a thousand months and more:

And having doffed the masks and shoes,

I chose to disappear:

Embarking myself on a flight in space...

And yet, while on my cosmic way,

I landed here again...

With everything locked inside my head,

The secrets of pain and gain...

The past, the present and the future threads:

Of every moment gone…

Now I am trying to figure out how,

I happened to lose it all,

When I and my loved one weren’t alone -

And never did our lives stall...

O, why this space confounds me now!

How did I drift here again?

Is a thought that keeps raking inside,

Forever in my brain,

And I see that I have nowhere to go,

Without her -- not one mile…

At nights I find that all my fears,

Enshroud me and don’t let go...

And I pine for her who smiled and said:

"Fear naught, for I with my sway,

Will love you and whatever life offers,

Will be with you, wherever you go..."

Ah, how I miss her now at every step,

Her assurance and her grace!

And even though time now connives with fate

And keeps her hidden somewhere,

I shan't give up...not for a day,

My quest to relocate her:

This is a vow made with my self,

And find her, come what may...

Well, why doesn't some voice with harp and song,

Refill the gaping void?

Recreating that which seems no more:

The colours in all their shades…

Tell me, can't I, like Khidr*,

Turn the tables on Hades?

And do what none, they say, can do,

Or succeeded before...

Why not free all that's trapped inside,

Within me for all these years?

Why not revel with death again,

And mock this sad encore?

Ah! That I had not fallen here,

To drift between life and death,

And to suffer Karma's pangs:

In body and mind and soul!

How I seek an escape route,

From this vast, unending whole...

O, where's Eden, will the Guide* tell me please?

Or at least give me a clue;

To the paradise I once shared with her,

And wanted nothing more...

A song sung on this stage before,

May it resound yet again,

And bring back all that I have lost,

My soul-mate – my only gain…

And return us both to the blissful realm,

Forever, for all the while -

For infinity....