Peter Hammill
Girl to the North Country
Draw your chair up to the fire
Lay your burden down
You've come so very far
From where it all began

That doomed romance, long expired
It's all behind you now
She was once your lucky star
You went and let her down so hard

A place of safety
Is that within her reach at last?

I heard she headed for the borderline
To bury all her memories underneath the drifting snow
In the nick of time, in a trick of light you let her go

All the squandered time adrift, how'll you ever find her now?
Far out beyond the treeline, still in search of a magician
She can serve for better or for worse
She always made a beeline for the one who'd give her
Less than she deserved
In the service of the fable

Was she ever your true love of the long ago?
And did she think of you at last or would you really rather not know?
All that's so very far away from now, today -
If she was once your lucky star
She was never going to stay that way

So it all ends up at the borderline
She never was the girl that you once glimpsed behind the glass
This boat is holed below the waterline
This story stands no scrutiny at last
How strange that everybody bought the line
You invented to romanticise the past

And just like that she's gone...