St. Stephen - The Eleven

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Mourão, Portugal - August 1985

(Hasselblad 500 EL/M)

“Saint Stephen” – Jerry Garcia/Phil Lesh/Robert Hunter

Saint Stephen with a rose, in and out of the garden he goes,

Country garden in the wind and the rain,

Wherever he goes the people all complain.

Stephen prospered in his time, well he may and he may decline.

Did it matter, does it now? Stephen would answer if he only knew how.

Wishing well with a golden bell, bucket hanging clear to hell,

Hell halfway twixt now and then,

Stephen fill it up and lower down and lower down again.

Lady finger, dipped in moonlight, writing "What for?" across the morning sky.

Sunlight splatters, dawn with answer, darkness shrugs and bids the day goodbye.

Speeding arrow, sharp and narrow,

What a lot of fleeting matters you have spurned.

Several seasons with their treasons,

Wrap the babe in scarlet colors, call it your own.

Did he doubt or did he try? Answers aplenty in the bye and bye,

Talk about your plenty, talk about your ills,

One man gathers what another man spills.

Saint Stephen will remain, all he's lost he shall regain,

Seashore washed by the suds and foam,

Been here so long, he's got to calling it home.

Fortune comes a crawlin', calliope woman, spinnin' that curious sense of your own.

Can you answer? Yes I can. But what would be the answer to the answer man?

Recorded by the Grateful Dead on the albums “Aoxomoxoa” and “Live/Dead” (1969)

“The Eleven” – Phil Lesh/Robert Hunter

High green chilly winds and windy vines

In loops around the twisted shafts of lavender,

They're crawling to the sun.

Underfoot the ground is patched

With arms of ivy wrapped around the manzanita,

Stark and shiny in the breeze.

Wonder who will water all the children of the garden

When they sigh about the barren lack of rain and

Droop so hungry neath the sky.

William Tell has stretched his bow till it won't stretch

No furthermore and/or it may require a change that hasn't come before.

No more time to tell how, this is the season of what,

Now is the time of returning with our thought

Jewels polished and gleaming.

Now is the time past believing the child has relinquished the rein,

Now is the test of the boomerang tossed in the night of redeeming.

Seven faced marble eyed transitory dream doll,

Six proud walkers on the jingle bell rainbow,

Five men writing with fingers of gold,

Four men tracking down the great white sperm whale,

Three girls waiting in a foreign dominion

Riding in the whale belly, fade away in moonlight,

Sink beneath the waters to the coral sands below.

By the Grateful Dead, from the “Live/Dead” album (1969)

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