Postcript to Donna's Summer (Perhaps Tomorrow)
As I lay me down to sleep
None could keep mine eyes from weep
Except one small, distant hope
Which saves me from that self-inflicted rope
Perhaps, perhaps tomorrow will be the day
When all my fear, and weeping, and sins are taken away
So with a start I prattle about my miserable and wretched hovel
Strewn here and there, chairs and tables overturned, hurrying to find that shovel
With which I march to Juno for to dredge him abreast
The man with whom I’ll walk before the throne, damned the rest
Perhaps, perhaps tomorrow will be the day
When all my fear, and weeping, and sins are taken away
On that climb I’ll gaze with him upon the throng-ed score
And our weeping for them will be the sweeping river which them keeps from the ajar-ed door
Our boundless pity will be that which plunges the vast multitude down below
On my knees for it the Lord I’ll beg for mercy, that what I did not know
Perhaps, perhaps tomorrow will be the day
When all my fear, and weeping, and sins are taken away
But wait! The throne is vacate
And the seemingly evicted masses now there, impossible to placate
There, at the empty chair of God, an ongoing competition of jumping and screaming
We search around in vain for our Lord, hearts bereaving
Perhaps, perhaps tomorrow will be the day
When all my fear, and weeping, and sins are taken away
Suddenly, a trap door swings open at my feet, my poor companion left behind
“The pulp so bitter; How shall taste the rind?”
Down I’m cast, into a room far below, where stands only she
Her gaze betrays for whom she sought was not me
Perhaps, perhaps tomorrow will be the day
When all my fear, and weeping, and sins are taken away
But my beloved Holy Mother still greets me with a warm-hearted sigh
Her other Son (the important One) sleeps elsewhere, we knowest not where He lie
She who wanted a different man and me a different woman… Alas, look!
As she reaches for the record of my life, that despicable book
A tear then rolls from her eye, and she begins to speak:
“I long with peirced heart to forgive you, but, oh, I am so weak
Only my Son can do that, and written here your pride betrays you.”
That last unpurgable desire still plagues my soul: ten thousand years I’ll go through
The heat begins surrounded, her crossing me the last vision to greet my eye
Before I forthwith started awake in my bed with a cry:
“Thank God! Thank God tomorrow shan’t be the day
When all my fear, and weeping, and sins are taken away!”