The Many Disguises of God

[Verse 1]
Bright blazed the sun on the day you were born
Red ran the flowering vine
I felt it then like the prick of a thorn
Someone so tender and kind
Watching

[Verse 2]
I left your mother a-sleeping and still
To walk for a while 'neath the sky
I climbed the side of a crooked old hill
Reaching the crest, I did spy
Soldiers

[Verse 3]
As you press on to the future's fair land
Child, spare a glance back where you came
For over your cradle a lone figure stands
History tells us his name
Adam

[Verse 4]
Had you the wings of the angel you seem
O'er these hospital walls you would fly
And my so-called crimes would go small like a dream
And there to your wondering eye

[Chorus]
A mountain face, lashed jagged by the sea
The plow's steady churn, the impress of hooves in the clay
A rusted gray shed, jammed with gunpowder and gold
A vine-clotted field where families once gathered to die
Seaports, depots
Where the goods of all lands freely flow
A signpost to a town no longer there
An arrow a-sail that no man shot nor can slow
Forms mighty and small, scrabbling 'round looking for food
The on-rushing plains, the soft lights just beyond
Ten thousand the same, one child who is not
The chair by the wall, a-rocking the dreadful day through
The hand of love withdrawn: the many disguises of God
The many disguises of God
The many disguises of God