Sweet Sister Temperance Lyrics

Sweet Sister Temperance
She of the Marble-hearted innocence,
So eloquent in her mute despair-with two smooth bands of reddish hair.

By some freak of fortune, she fainted while baking in the kitchen,
Overturning all her airy schemes,
For great and small and all that's in-between;
For future happiness in a knot of blue field violets,
For her glory and her power, which she found in her final hour,
Great and small and all in-between.


Sweet Sister Temperance
She of the Marble-hearted innocence,
So eloquent in her mute despair-with two smooth bands of reddish hair.

One can see the consequence of her endless, virtuous penitence
In a scarlet letter or a tender tear, in two smooth bands of reddish hair.

"Poor defeated, I," she cried, "Keep green my memory."
"Poor defeated, I," she cried, "Keep green my memory."

We had just laid out the garden, handsome more so now than ever
An exquisite cleanness showing in the diamond squares.
She kept us enraptured, gently captured by a tender emotion.
Wild flowers growing. We strode a moonlit path,
In silent pairs. (Chorus...)

Home is so far from Home.