Song Title: Saint Stephen
Players: J. Garcia, M. Hart, R. McKernan, B. Kreutzmann, P. Lesh, B. Weir
Album: Two From The Vault / 1968 Shrine Aud., Los Angeles, CA
Live Show:
Time: 4:40
Buy this album from Grateful Dead Online Store

Saint Stephen
Lyrics: Robert Hunter
Music: Garcia, Lesh
Published By; Ice Nine Publishing Company, Inc.(ASCAP)

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 prosper in his time
Well he may, and he may decide
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 half way 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 answers
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 colours, call it your own


Did he doubt or did he try?
Answers a-plenty in the by and by
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 the foam
Been here so long he's got to calling it home


Fortune comes a-crawling, Calliope woman
Spinning that curious sense of your own
Can you answer? Yes I can
But what would be the answer to the answer man?

High green chilly winds and windy vines in loops
Around the twined shafts of lavender
They're crawling to the sun


Underfoot the ground is patched
With climbing 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 it will require a change that hasn't come before