[Intro]
[Verse]
My wings were blue in the ocean green
The prettiest thing you ve ever seen
The gurnet said to the catfish
Rose were my legs and rose my sides
And who would have thought as I roved the tide
Where the red crab watched me scuttle and glide
I would come to dance in a net?
[Verse]
The fisherman stands by the water and chuckles
Clams are his ears and limpets his knuckles
The gurnet said to the catfish
The beard of a mussel droops from his chin
The scales of a mackerel cling to his skin
And his eyes roll out and his eyes roll in
As he watches us dance in the net
[Verse]
His eyes are hard as berries of kelp
But sweet is his daughter who comes to help
The gurnet said to the catfish
They take the ropes in their lean brown hands
And haul us out on the shine of the sands
And the girl she laughs as the fisherman stands
And watches us dance in the net
[Bridge]
[Verse]
Let her hang up her clothes on a gooseberry bush
Where the waves say crush and the foam says hush
The gurnet said to the catfish
The surf is red with struggle and slaughter
But somewhere on earth or in sky or in water
The scaly man and his long-legged daughter
Will come to dance in a net
[Instrumental]
[Verse]
The fishes dance to the fisherman s tune
The waters run to the pull of the moon
And the gurnet said to the catfish
The air and the sand at the edge of the tide
The fisherman s daughter, dancing in pride
With her rosy legs and her rosy side
Is less than a fish in the net
[Bridge]
[Verse]
For somewhere, glaring in wastes of space
There s a terrible eye in an empty face
The gurnet said to the catfish
And round and round in the spell of that stare
Flashing and slashing and biting the snare
Go all the glittering shoals of the air
Dancing like fish in the net
[Verse]
So somebody sits in space and chuckles
With hair like a comet and stars for knuckles
The gurnet said to the catfish
And glimmer of side and swirl of fin
His arms are huge as he hauls them in
And his teeth are sharks in a mile wide grin
As he watches them dance in the net
[Bridge]
[Verse]
There I m going and there go you
I with my wings of butterfly blue
The gurnet said to the catfish
The moon comes by and he swallows it whole
And there is the girl with wings on her soul
And now it s the fisher, and the great eyes roll
As he watches them dance in the net