C                   F                     C
Now the Swan it floated on the English river
       C            F                 C
Ah the Rose of High Romance it opened wide
  E                Am                     F/C
A sun tanned woman yearned me through the summer
        G                 F              C
and the judges watched us from the other side

C                F                   C
I told my mother Mother I must leave you
C                    F             C
preserve my room but do not shed a tear
       E           Am            F/C
Should rumour of a shabby ending reach you
       G                 F            C
it was half my fault and half the atmosphere

        C               F              C
But the Rose I sickened with a scarlet fever
        C              F               C
and the Swan I tempted with a sense of shame
    E              Am             F/C
She said at last I was her finest lover
           G        F             C
and if she withered I would be to blame

    C               F               C
The judges said you missed it by a fraction
C                       F              C
rise up and brace your troops for the attack
       E              Am                F/C
Ah the dreamers ride against the men of action
   G              F              C
Oh see the men of action falling back

      C                F              C
But I lingered on her thighs a fatal moment
  C                  F                 C
I kissed her lips as though I thirsted still
   E           Am              F/C
My falsity had stung me like a hornet
    G                  F            C
The poison sank and it paralysed my will

  C                 F                     C
I could not move to warn all the younger soldiers
     C             F            C
that they had been deserted from above
      E                 Am            F/C
So on battlefields from here to Barcelona
    G               F          C
I'm listed with the enemies of love

    C            F               C
And long ago she said I must be leaving,
       C            F           C
Ah but keep my body here to lie upon
        E               Am                F/C
You can move it up and down and when I'm sleeping
         G                 F                 C
Run some wire through that Rose and wind the Swan

   C       F              C
So daily I renew my idle duty
  C                  F                 C
I touch her here and there, I know my place
  E             Am                     F/C
I kiss her open mouth and I praise her beauty
    G                   F            C
and people call me traitor to my face