Requiem

New Lyrics and Music ©1979 by Bill Roper
Chorus Lyrics by Robert Louis Stevenson

I met Robert Heinlein at the first Dorsai Thing that I went to in 1979. He was happily sitting listening to the filkers; I was playing everything in my fairly limited repertoire trying to keep up.

I wrote this song shortly thereafter, but never found myself in his presence again. I should have sent him a copy.

	Dm                 C
	Under the wide and starry sky,
	Dm                C
	Dig the grave and let me lie.
	Dm                    C
	Gladly did I live and gladly did I die
	      Dm      C           Dm
	And I laid me down with a will.

	This be the verse you grave for me.
	Here he lies where he longed to be.
	Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
	And the hunter home from the hill.

Dm                       C            Dm        C         Dm
You built the ships that boldly fly between the Earth and Moon,
        C                               Dm
But you cannot fly yourself, and you're gonna die too soon.
         C                          Dm
For your bones are brittle and your heart is weak,
           C               Dm          C              Am7        Dm
And you'll never touch the Lunar soil, never feel the Lunar gravity.

So you hire two men who've spaced before, but now are trapped on the ground.
One who was fired for drinking, and one for bringing diamonds down.
And they spend your money on a strato-yacht and make it fit to fly
Out there far beyond old Terra's gravity.

But still men try to stop you, to keep you on the ground.
But your mechanic slugs the sheriff, and then you're outward bound.
And you gaze out through the viewport at a million naked stars
As you float in the zero gravity.

And then the rockets fire once more, and your form is wracked with pain.
And they put you in your spacesuit and take you out upon the Lunar plain.
And the blue-green Earth floats overhead, and the Moon's soil's at your back
As you lie in the Lunar gravity.

	Under the wide and starry sky,
	Dig the grave and let me lie.
	Gladly did I live and gladly did I die
	And I laid me down with a will.

	This be the verse you grave for me,
	Here he lies where he longed to be.
	Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
	And the hunter home from the hill.