Return To Terrapin
Composer(s): Robert Hunter
Performer(s): The Grateful Dead



Up these steps beside me climb
To Terrapin and points sublime
Robbed of reason, faith and name
Broken-hearted blind and lame

Slain by doubt, mistaken trust
Abandoned in the rain to rust
Shriveled by the heat of day
Torn to shreds by birds of prey

Shapeless in the fire's glow
Tell me if you think you know
Who it was we were below
Where we've been and where we go

Lilies have the bees to tend them
Grasses have the breeze to bend them
Broken hearts have tears to mend them
Show us stairs, we will ascend them

Stair by stair by stair we climb
Voices hushed to sighs by time
Speak our souls in pantomime
Clear cold bells of winter chime

Pale through this ghostly haze
The dawn of a newborn moon
Illuminates this ancient maze
Of tumbled stones rough hewn

Trust your faith and enter
By paths the heart divines
The sun lies at the center
Through gates of creeping vines

how faint the rays
of former days
in avenues of time
but it does shine
emblem of sight
pride of the eyes
that shatters shadow
and all of the dark defies

Let the sun rise!