When She Comes - Van Der Graaf Generator

Slow motion in the quiet of your room:

So potent is the smell of her perfume

that you think she’s eternal

that you think she’s everything

-but no-one knows what she is…

Repentance for all you should have said-

Her entrance seems to raise you from the dead

and you think she’s really with you

and you think she’ll always stay.

always ready to forgive you,

always ready to grant you her mercy

-but in her own way.

When she comes she’ll be a stranger;

Struck dumb you’ll try to protest

As the drum beats out the danger,

Too late-you should have noticed

That the lady with her skin so white

Like something out of Blake or Burne-Jones

Always blocked out the light

and shadowed all you owned.

Still you think she’s forever,

Yesterday and tomorrow

-but no-one knows where she is.

Still you swear that you can win her

And your prayer is that she’ll want you;

Aware, once a saint, now you’re a sinner

And your sins are going to haunt you

When the lady with her skin so white

Like something out of Edgar Allen Poe

Holds your hand so tight

and you hope that she’ll never let go.