We never taste a perfect wine,

Nor live for long in happiness,

The path we walk is stony flint,

We walk alone there, side by side,

The sun awakes the flower’s bloom,

The rain, the sleeping seeds,

But sometimes in my dreams I hear

Faint whispers of the sea,

Which bore our ship on heaving waves,

Through storm and diamond ice,

Through fears and  through misgivings,

The old world to the new,

Which appeared to us in glitter,

That first night in New York,

When a taxi man drove us round

And a black man eased our pain

On the journey north by clicking rail,

To a land that lay in snow,

Where new troubles borne of old,

To regrets gave birth anew.

We never taste a perfect wine,

Nor live for long in happiness,

The path we walk is stony flint,

We walk alone there, side by side.