Central Village

Central Village, ah bitter-sweet your love The golden sunset above The black smoke of sugarcane burning And the boy on Twickenham's mead yearning Sometimes again like flocks of birds in flight Across the evening sky Memory comes winging at the edge of night And old men only sigh For all life treasures seem in the past, gone And every new dawn Is empty, but of the world's weariness. My pearl, My diamond in the rough was she The troubled, bright eye, beautiful girl I did not know joy she brought to me Despite your violent lanes, broken fences You showed me life without gilt and pretenses