The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #169212   Message #4065178
Posted By: GUEST,Gerry
20-Jul-20 - 08:22 PM
Thread Name: Songs from the Mudcat Worldwide Singaround
Subject: RE: Mudcat Worldwide Singaround on Zoom-Today!!!
Here are the lyrics I used for Do Youi Think That I Do Not Know.

Do you think that I do not know
Henry Lawson

They say that I never have written of love, as a writer of songs should do
They say that I never could touch the strings with a touch that is firm and true
They say I know nothing of women and men in the fields where Love's roses grow
I must write, they say, with a halting pen do you think that I do not know?

My love-burst came, like an English Spring, in days when our hair was brown
And the hem of her skirt was a sacred thing and her hair was an angel's crown
The shock when another man touched her arm, where the dancers sat in a row
The hope, the despair, and the false alarm do you think that I do not know

By the arbour lights on the western farms, you remember the question put
While you held her warm in your quivering arms and you trembled from head to foot
The electric shock from her finger-tips, and the murmuring answer low
The soft, shy yielding of warm red lips do you think that I do not know

She was buried at Brighton, where Gordon sleeps, when I was a world away
And the sad old garden its secret keeps, for nobody knows to-day
She left a message for me to read, where the wild wide oceans flow
Do you know how the heart of a man can bleed do you think that I do not know

I stood by the grave where the dead girl lies, when the sunlit scenes were fair
Neath white clouds high in the autumn skies, and I answered the message there
But the haunting words of the dead to me shall go wherever I go
She lives in the Marriage that Might Have Been do you think that I do not know

I used a tune by Chris Kempster. Another well-known musical setting is by Slim Dusty. Best recording, for my money, was by Declan Affley.