Paul England - Araby Lyrics

My love carried me down to Araby
There were ribbons in her hair and white stockings at her knees
Her fragile body moved like fabric in the wind
My fragile body, like ice fractured from within

And lying in the darkness where some lonely priest had died
I vowed upon a bedsheet that his sacrifice wasn't mine
And drawing on the lessons I had learned of charity
I would search for my salvation in the halls of Araby

Now the neighborhood was silent as the winter light grew dim
Faintly through the evening I could hear my lover's hymn
The air, it got much colder as I waited by the night
To take my love as prisoner, hold her captive in my sight

As I watched her through the window, I could hear another song
If my body were the harp she held, no rhythm could be wrong
But the wires were like tourniquets that bore no harmony
Still, my love gifted me guidance with a song of Araby

Bound in rusted armor, this knight limped down the street
Beckoned from his solitude to the place where lovers meet
I held a coin so tight I thought that I would bleed
While voices sang above me, all the spirits I had freed

And visions of my lover formed as teardrops in the sky
The visions fell upon me like the spirits she made cry
And the stones laid on the walkway spelled out poems I could not read
But the poets knew of heroes who tamed love at Araby

My love carried me down to Araby
There was nothing here but darkness, nothing I could see
My ears rang in the silence, their most familiar tune
The walls began to crumble, as my love would crumble soon

Finding no reflection in the Mirror of Nobleness
I gazed into the chasm, that fiery abyss
And there I saw my image in the one called Vanity
And I traded truth for innocence that night at Araby