Leonard Cohen Lyrics

Album: Dear Heather

To A Teacher Lyrics

[Dedicated to A. M. Klein (1909-1972)]

 

 Hurt once and for all into silence.

 A long pain ending without a song to prove it.

 Who could stand beside you so close to Eden,

 When you glinted in every eye the held-high

 razor, shivering every ram and son?

 And now the silent loony bin, where

 The shadows live in the rafters like

 Day-weary bats,

 Until the turning mind, a radar signal,

 lures them to exaggerate

 Mountain-size on the white stone wall

 Your tiny limp.

 How can I leave you in such a house?

 Are there no more saints and wizards

 to praise their ways with pupils,

 No more evil to stun with the slap

 of a wet red tongue?

 Did you confuse the Messiah in a mirror

 and rest because he had finally come?

 Let me cry Help beside you, Teacher.

 I have entered under this dark roof

 As fearlessly as an honoured son

 Enters his father's house.