| Outside the Nashville city limits
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| a friend and I did drive,
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| on a day in early winter
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| I was glad to be alive.
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| We went to see some friends of his
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| who lived upon a farm.
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| Strange and gentle country folk
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| who would wish nobody harm.
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| Fresh-cut sixty acres,
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| eight cows in the barn.
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| But the thing that I remember
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| on that cold day in December
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| was that my eyes they did brim over
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| as we talked.
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| In the slowest drawl I had ever heard
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| the man said «Come with me
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| if y’all wanna see the prettiest place
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| in all of Tennesee.»
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| He poured us each a glass of wine
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| and a-walking we did go,
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| along fallen leaves and crackling ice
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| where a tiny brook did flow.
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| He knew every inch of the land
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| and Lord he loved it so.
|
| But the thing that I remember
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| on that cold day in December
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| was that my eyes were brimming over
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| as we walked.
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| He set my down upon a stone
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| beside a running spring.
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| He talked in a voice so soft and clear
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| like the waters I heard sing.
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| He said «We searched quite a time
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| for a place to call our own.
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| There was just me and Mary John
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| and now I guess we’re home.»
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| I looked at the ground and wondered
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| how many years they each had roamed.
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| And Lord I do remember
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| on that day in late December
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| how my eyes kept brimming over
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| as we talked.
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| As we walked.
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| And standing there with outstretched arms
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| he said to me «You know,
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| I can’t wait till the heavy storms
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| cover the ground with snow,
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| and there on the pond the watercress
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| is all that don’t turn white.
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| When the sun is high you squint your eyes
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| and look at the hills so bright.»
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| And nodding his head my friend said,
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| «And it seems like overnight
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| that the leaves come out so tender
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| at the turning of the winter…»
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| I thought the skies they would brim over
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| as we talked. |