Our Mother the Mountain

By townes van zandt

My lover comes to me with a rose on her bosom

The moon's dancin' purple

All through her black hair

And a ladies-in-waiting she stands 'neath my window

And the sun will rise soon

On the false and the fair

She tells me she comes from my mother the mountain

Her skin fits her tightly

And her lips do not lie

She silently slips from her throat a medallion

Slowly she twirls it

In front of my eyes

I watch her, i love her, i long for to touch her

The satin she's wearin'

Is shimmering blue

Outside my window her ladies are sleeping

My dogs have gone hunting

The howling is through

So i reach for her hand and her eyes turns to poison

And her hair turns to splinters,

And her flesh turns to brine

She leaps cross the room, she stands in the window

And screams that my first-born

Will surely be blind

She throws herself out to the black of the nightfall

She's parted her lips

But she makes not a sound

I fly down the stairway, and i run to the garden

No trace of my true love

Is there to be found

So walk these hills lightly, and watch who you're lovin'

By mother the mountain

I swear that it's true

Love not a woman with hair black as midnight

And her dress made of satin

All shimmering blue