"The Gulf Of Araby" by Natalie Merchant

Words and music by Katell Keineg

 If you could fill a veil with shells from Killiney's shore
 And sweet talk in a tongue that is no more
 And if wishful thoughts could bridge The Gulf of Araby
 Between what is, what is, what is
 And what can never be

 If you could hold the frozen flow of New Hope Creek
 And hide out from the one they said you might meet
 And if you could unlearn all the words
 That you never wanted heard
 If you could stall the southern wind
 That's whistling in your ears
 You could take what is, what is, what is
 To what can never be

 One man of seventy whispers free at last
 Two neighbors who are proud of their massacres
 Three tyrants torn away in a winter's month
 Four prisoners framed by a dirty judge
 Five burned with tyres
 Six men still inside
 And seven more days to shake at the great divide

 (X2) The Gulf, the Gulf of Araby
 
 Well, we would plough and part the earth to bring you home
 And harvest every miracle ever known
 And if they laid out all the things 
 That these ten years were to bring
 We would gladly give them up
 To bring you back to us
 O, there is nothing we would not give
 To kiss you and to believe we could take what is, what is,
what is
 To what can never be

 One man of seventy whispers not free yet
 Two neighbors who make up knee-deep in their dead
 Three tyrants grab the reins in the summer's heat
 Four prisoners lost in the fallacy
 Five, on my life
 And six, I'm dead inside
 And seven more days to shake at the great divide

 (X2) The Gulf, the Gulf of Araby