Arrayed for the Bridal

 

Arrayed for the bridal she looks so nervous

Her mother beside her she didn't want to go in.

She cried all last night imploring the service

Of all of the angels on the head of the pin.

 

“Oh, take me away to a small town out west

Where I'd work as a waitress in a broke down cafe

And live right above it. That would be best.

And work some nights and only part if the day.

 

And maybe I'll write him a letter sometime

And have a cowboy send it for me.

"I got a small room and I'm feeling quite fine

In fact I'm feeling quite free.

 

 I have a small bed, one table and chair

"The Gypsy Girl" hangs on the wall

And as for the rest why you know it's not there

I have a few things and that's all.

 

But I have that old book you once gave me, Joe

"The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart"

And read it sometimes just so I will know

To be true we must be apart."

 

 But none of the angels heard a damn word.

They laughed and laughed in their dancing.

For she was a Methodist and the thought is absurd

That they would stop, for an instant, their dancing.

 

And so she was married on an old winter's day

Perhaps it was all for the best.

But sometimes she dreams as the old records play

Of that broke down cafe way out west.