With the pale cracked mouth of a saint you spoke
In patterns; like all my favorite prayers,
Ave Maria, Our Father, so on.
Pray, pray, the old forbidden question.

Au revoir! Scene!

A half burnt cigarette lands at my feet.
Oh what’s it all mean? What is it to me?
The old Manhattan Opera is all filled
Up with those glowing pretty faces I love

Perfume and cologne, fur coats and bow ties.
The cool night rain douses the red embers,
I look up from it before i miss them;
The apparitions could disappear soon.

Any second! At a moments notice!
I could lose every single one of them,
And their glory, and their beauty, all gone.
Oh, but I pray, what would it be to me?

In the blink of an eye they could be light
Years away, and what would that be to me?