[00:24.00]The dancer slows her frantic pace
[00:26.30]In pain and desperation,
[00:28.70]Her aching limbs and downcast face
[00:31.10]Aglow with perspiration
[00:35.53]Stiff as wire, her lungs on fire,
[00:37.84]With just the briefest pause —
[00:40.26]The flooding through her memory,
[00:42.80]The echoes of old applause.
[00:51.34]She limps across the floor
[00:55.15]And closes her bedroom door…
[01:23.42]The writer stares with glassy eyes —
[01:25.84]Defies the empty page,
[01:28.03]His beard is white, his face is lined
[01:30.46]And streaked with tears of rage.
[01:35.07]Thirty years ago, how the words would flow
[01:38.00]With passion and precision,
[01:40.38]But now his mind is dark and dulled
[01:42.46]By sickness and indecision.
[01:51.23]And he stares out the kitchen door
[01:55.15]Where the sun will rise no more…
[02:08.53]Some are born to move the world —
[02:11.88]To live their fantasies
[02:15.80]But most of us just dream about
[02:19.50]The things we'd like to be
[02:23.65]Sadder still to watch it die
[02:27.00]Than never to have known it
[02:31.15]For you — the blind who once could see —
[02:35.88]The bell tolls for thee…