Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then) lyrics

Song information

Artist: The Decemberists
Album: The Crane Wife

Lyrics

Soldier: heart carved tree trunk, yankee bayonet
A sweetheart left behind

Girl: far from the hills of the sea-swaled carolinas
That's where my true love lies

Soldier: look for me when the sun-bright swallow
Sings upon the birch bow high

Girl: but you are in the ground with the wolves and the weevils
All a-chew on your bones so dry

But when the sun breaks to no more bullets in battlecreek
Then will you make a grave? for I will be home then
I will be home then
I will be home then
I will be home then
Then

Girl: when I was a girl how the hills of oconee
Made a seam to hem me in

Soldier: there at the fair when our eyes caught, careless
Got my heart right pierced by a pin

Soldier: but o did you see all the dead of manassas
All the bellies and the bones and the bile?

Girl: no, I lingered here with the blankets barren
And my own belly big with child

But when the sun breaks to no more bullets in battlecreek
Then will you make a grave? for I will be home then
I will be home then
I will be home then
I will be home then

Soldier: and stems and bones and stone walls too
Could keep me from you
This skein of skin is all too few
To keep me from you

Solider and girl: but o my love though our bodies may be parted
Though our skin may not touch skin
Look for me with the sun-bright sparrow
I will come on the breath of the wind