A lady that I know so well
Lives out on yonder hill.
I met her many years ago,
And she is special, still.

Her name is Grace; she was a nurse
In some far foreign land,
Where politicians stayed at home,
And men fought, hand to hand.

Grace helped those men who'd fallen
In the battles that had raged.
She'd sing the songs of days gone by
As, outside, war was waged.

A fair haired boy from Boston town,
And just before he goes,
He asks if Grace would sing to him
"My Wild Irish Rose."

And as she sweetly sings to him,
His labored breathing slows,
And then he quits that bitter war
To join his friends and foes.

A brave man from the Allagash
Was fevered and in pain,
But when she sang, she gently calmed
That country boy from Maine.

That volunteer from Tennessee,
Before he breathed his last,
Grace sang him home to distant hills
And loved ones from his past.

Now when some song from days gone by
Comes on the radio,
Grace sheds a tear as she recalls
Those days so long ago.

Those songs that come from out the past;
Each has its haunting face.
Familiar notes will take her
To another time and place.


And if Grace takes a lover,
When she holds him in her arms,
No matter how that man responds
To all her natural charms,

That tender touch and warm embrace
Remind her of the past,
When she held lads close to her breast
As they all breathed their last.

She only sees a soldier there,
Out in the mud and rain.
His life blood spilling on the ground,
And only feels his pain.

And I am one of many men
Who from the battlefield
Returned to friends and family
With my wounds and scars all healed.

And as I hold those withered hands
And look into those eyes,
The past comes rushing back to me,
And I still realize

That those same hands once cradled me,
And I heard, sweet and low,
A sweet refrain to ease my pain
Back many years ago.

And so I stop for coffee
To ward off the winter chill,
And sit there with that angel
At her house on yonder hill.