The Vineyard - Augie March

The golden sun is ever gentle in the Valley of Making

Where it’s the middle of the Autumn when it isn’t high Spring

There are men of many colors and women of all races

Wearing white, white linen

And smiles on their faces —

Blue rose…

There are roses round the edges of the grand property

The words «Labor, Ardor, Langdor» are its lovely trinity

And when you see just how they dress and how they speak and act too

Well all you’ll want to do is dress up in their white linen too —

Blue rose and drew the curtain back on the morning…

And you said holly-hey, and with a teary tilt

For you were rudely made, and shoddy built

Between the thumb and the forefinger

Barefoot pressed, he hoists his trouser leg

She lifts her dress

O these men of many colors in their creamy white suits

With their different colored hands dig in the soil for their roots

Of the dreamy conversation that the slender women make

As they sip from slender glasses by the vineyard lake —

Blue rose and drew the curtain back on the morning

Blue rose and every little thing was gilt and suffering no more…

If you could see the people laughing and not here the sound it makes

Then you could keep the good opinion that the tone of voice takes

If you could see the people laughing and not here the sound it makes — it goes.

There’s a woman there among them who with red, red eyes

Says you haven’t been a’working hard enough on your lies

The golden sun is ever gentle and one lie follows another in

The only way to get there is by singing brother, singing

There are women of all races, men in white, white linen

And the only way to get there is to sing sister, sing sister, sing —

And draw the curtain back on the morning

Blue rose and every little thing was gilt and suffering no more

Blue rose and drew the curtain back on the morning…

Where the wars were not for wearing

The ghettoes never got

To each lonely, lonely person their own shovel, their own plot

Have you ever heard a rattle way on down when people sigh

Way on down the silly rattle says you’re happy when you die