Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow—
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream:
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand—
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep
While I weep—while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

How many times do I have to regress
and regret all the times
I've faltered?
Should I relive and revive all
my sins and wrongs,
create and shape my own private hell?
Is it not what I deserve?
To bury the past in shallow graves
so the rain may reveal
the skeletons of my loves past
yet never gone -
what of the dirt on my hands?
Is it not plain to see the time
I've spent digging holes within?
How long do I continue digging -
until the soil beneath my nails
turns to blood in clenched fist?
Can I keep looking to the past
to reveal the ways of my future,
or is it in this present moment I am
to seek and see answers?
What words should I etch on tombstone
to harken what it is I cannot say?
To what spirits and lords above
and gods below should I
shovel so many final resting places,
and to which of these I've dug
is mine own grave?

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

Mr. Piano Man how your
fingers rain down on the keys
dancing a somber ballet
capturing the feeling of being empty
like those bottles underneath

Here Mr. Piano Man
the next drink is on me
while we sift through debris
of our melancholy

Every note stings
every chord bleeds
woe is you
and
woe is me
play
Mr. Piano Man
a song to our ennui

Let it rain Mr. Piano Man
let the storm hammer the strings
lets swim in the puddle
of whats spilt underneath

Oh Mr. Piano Man
What is that I hear?
That note that was just hit
it sounded rather queer
there is no room for happiness
at the bottom of this beer

No! NO! Mr. Piano Man
I don't want the sun
go back to stormy waters
to where you had begun

I thought you a friend
I thought we allies
I thought we understood
the sounds of demise

Mr. Piano Man how you so betrayed
with your songs of love and spring
every note my heart aches
every chord a bee sting

Mr. Piano Man this is my goodbye
I am leaving you now
please don't cry
I am going to my new friend
Mr. Bartender
How do you do?
Give me an endless bottle
and another drunk to talk to.