There was a Land

There was a Land

- where the wind blows cold over empty land ...

Written and read

by 

Agnes Miegel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=au5wsjtHWRc

(Born 1879 in Königsberg, Prussia; died 1964)

(& damn good looking she was as well, if I may say so, old chap!)

Shortened and set to Pink Floyd's
"Shine On You Crazy Diamond Pt I"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UXircX3VdM

By someone I don't know, salvaged, damaged, from a cassette deck and repaired:

Agnes Miegel

There was a Land [Es war ein Land] (MP3)

Enjoy, or recoil, as you will.

There was a land ...

Where ashes blow easier than dust and sand

Where nettles grow high on burst, broken walls

And higher still thistles on the edge of the land.

There was a land - where are you, time?

Where rye billowed as wide as the sea

Where thrushes sang from the alder tree

When herd and foal went to water.

Farm up, farm down, like a gentle heart rang

The tapping of scythes in the light of the night

And barge upon barge lay still on the river

And safely slept cathedral and town

In the bright of night - the midsummer night.

There was a land - in the evening glow

Sheaf upon sheaf stood out in the field

Hill up, hill down to the megalith grave

Haystacks stood high, scenting of bread

And, high above, the stork drew its circles.

The sea was so blue, and the beach was so white

And a poppy-red moon on the edge of the wood

In the warm of night - the harvest night.

There was a land - the fog, when it drew

Like cobwebs around the juniper flew

The birches shone in white and in gold

And coral the umbels of rowanberry.

As acorns crunched beneath our feet

In the hardend furrows of the street

A star blinked at me, far and alone

And in the forest, you heard the stag roar

In the cold of night - the September night.

There was a land - when the east wind whistled

It lay as still as a ship caught in ice

And snow covered the seeds like a down

Obscuring the elks' clandestine trail.

As the sea froze gray on an icy groyne

The lagoon's fishers and fish met at the hole

And under a warm roof of reed and straw

The loom clattered to an ancient song:

'We both, we are still young and strong,

We nourish ourself with our hands.'

There was a land - we loved this land

But horror sank over it like desert sand

Gone in the fen as the moose's trail

Are the traces of man and of creature.

They froze in the snow; they burned in the fire;

They perished in misery in enemy territory;

They lie deep on the ground of the Baltic Sea;

Tide washes their bones in sound and in bay;

They sleep in Jutland's sandy womb.

And the last of us are drifting, homeless;

Tang after storm; autumn leaves in the wind.

Father, you know how lonely we are!

There was a Land [Es war ein Land] (MP3)