In a park there was a lake,On the lake there was a boat,In the boat there was a boy.
In a park there was a lake,On the lake there was a boat,In the boat there was a boy.
In a park there was a lake,On the lake there was a boat,In the boat there was a boy.
In a park there was a lake,
On the lake there was a boat,
In the boat there was a boy.
Hour after hour the stupid jingle flowed throughhis consciousness. Perhaps it kept him from going mad, but it did not bring him back his speech, he was dumb, dumb. And he remembered a man who had been stricken deaf, and then blind—Scroope knew him too, it was some man who had mocked God.
In a park there was a lake,On the lake there was a boat,In the boat there was a boy.
In a park there was a lake,On the lake there was a boat,In the boat there was a boy.
In a park there was a lake,On the lake there was a boat,In the boat there was a boy.
In a park there was a lake,
On the lake there was a boat,
In the boat there was a boy.
On the day of the funeral Pavey imagined that he had been let out of prison; he dreamed that someone had been kind and set him free for an hour or two to bury his dead boy. He seemed to arrive at Thasper when the ceremony was already begun, the coffin was already in the church. Pavey knelt down beside his mother. The rector intoned the office, the child was taken to its grave. Dumb dreaming Pavey turned his eyes from it. The day was too bright for death, it was a stainless day. The wind seemed to flow in soft streams, rolling the lilac blooms. A small white feather, blown from a pigeon on the church gable, whirled about like a butterfly. “We give thee hearty thanks,” the priest was saying, “for that it hath pleased thee to deliver this our brother out of the miseries of this sinful world.” At the end of it all Pavey kissed his mother, and saw himself turn back to his prison. He went by the field paths away to the railway junction. The country had begun to look a little parched, for rain was wanted—vividly he could see all this—but things were growing, corn was thriving greenly, the beanfields smelled sweet. A frill of yellow kilk and wild white carrot spray lined every hedge. Cattle dreamed in thegrass, the colt stretched itself unregarded in front of its mother. Larks, wrens, yellow-hammers. There were the great beech trees and the great hills, calm and confident, overlooking Cobbs and Peter, Thasper and Trinkel, Buzzlebury and Nuncton. He sees the summer is coming on, he is going back to prison. “Courage is vain,” he thinks, “we are like the grass underfoot, a blade that excels is quickly shorn. In this sort of a world the poor have no call to be proud, they had only need be penitent.”
In the park there was a lake,On the lake ... boat,In the boat....
In the park there was a lake,On the lake ... boat,In the boat....
In the park there was a lake,On the lake ... boat,In the boat....
In the park there was a lake,
On the lake ... boat,
In the boat....