The farmer's wife cooks at the window In that small cottage under the willow Over the river, so freezing, so cold In that white house up on the hill Where a man saw a way out And took it he did A family moved in I don't think they know And the blackberry juice drips like blood on the leaves And the blood on the fox drips like dew from its teeth And the dew in the field falls like petals, so sweet And the petals they fall and turn brown at my feet And the rhythms of autumn wash over me ♪ When I return from my city to home I pass by the churchyard He's standing alone That elderly man whose wife I did know Her mother, grandmother, great-grandmother too All sleep side by side beneath the green dew That elderly man thinks that he'll join them soon And the apples they fall like the shells from the guns And the shotgun it misses the hare when he runs And he moves like the wind with cold air in his lungs And his little warm heart beats in fear like a drum And the night it draws in like the hand that will fall With its scythen black curtain make tombs of us all And the sun's little visits are starting to shorten And the village it lives through the rhythms of autumn And the creatures die at the hand of those who kill And the leaves will decay by the winters that chill And some will pass on by their own desperate will Just like that man in the white house on the hill And the blackberry juice drips like blood on the leaves And the blood on the fox drips like dew from its teeth And the dew in the field falls like petals, so sweet And the petals they fall and turn brown at my feet And the rhythms of water wash over me And the rhythms of water watch over me