Such Small Ale

Alison Moyet

Compositor: Alison Moyet

We should step out
From under this cloud
Take chance to meet daylight
Abandon the crowd
Let’s pack off the ghosts
So late to their beds
With a hand-tied of lavender
To gentle their rest

What have we here for tether?
Our own restraint
Which sprite are we appeasing with this
Long-recited litany of grievous shame?
Heathens brewing virtue from a
Reservoir of pain
With life for drink from brim to brink
Who’d choose to sink in
Such small ale?

We should step out
From under this shroud
Warming bones in the dapple light
With the choosing still ours

What is here to keep us
But our own restraint
Whose sins are we redeeming
With our much-beleaguered retinue of bleeding saints?
What heathen waits to rest by sleeping?
Hold your creeping tears to fill a pail
For pity’s sake
It’s such small ale

For what else is there to keep us
But our own restraint
What nature do we sweeten in our reservoir
Of bitter rain
This drowning game
Blow these seething years to fill a sail
With life for drink
From brim to brink
Who’d choose to sink in
Such small ale?
We wont sink in
Such small ale