I wanted to go to the end of the street
To buy a chocolate éclair,
But now I’m at the end of the street,
The end of the street’s not there.
I’ll swear it was there just yesterday,
Was there on the day before,
But now when I look for the end of the street
The end of the street’s no more.

All I can see is a land of waste,
A land of rubble and weeds,
Where bushes grow in untidy rows,
A scatter of burdock seeds,
I wander on where the shops have gone
Where you used to meet with us,
But the road just ended around the bend
Where we caught the 16 bus.

There’s nothing left but a wilderness
An empty paddock and space,
As if I meet at the end of the street
The end of the human race,
The houses, shops and the industry
And the people I saw before,
They seem to be lost in a history
That nobody felt or saw.

That nobody felt or saw, I thought,
That came and took you away,
Strapped in the back of an ambulance
Laid out on a cold tin tray,
And your laughter fades in the wilderness
And your sighs reach up to the Moon,
And my heart that burst at the back of the hearse
Will never be mended soon.

I wanted to go to the end of the street
To buy a chocolate éclair,
For chocolate’s really the only thing
That will feed my deep despair.
But my soul is lost in the wilderness
Of your empty passing by,
I’d spend my grief on the lonely heath
If I thought I could only cry!

David Lewis Paget