The Lilac And The Apple Lyrics - Gold In California: A Retrospective Of Recordings 1975-1985, Vol. 1 & 2 - Kate Wolf

A Lilac bush and an Apple tree 

Were standing in the woods 

Out on the hill above the town, 

Where once a farmhouse stood. 

In the winter the leaves are bare 

And no one sees the signs 

Of a house that stood and a garden that grew 

And life in another time. 

One Spring when the buds came bursting forth 

And grass grew on the land, 

The Lilac spoke to the Apple tree 

As only an old friend can. 

Do you think, said the Lilac, this might be the year 

When someone will build here once more? 

Here by the cellar, still open and deep, 

There's room for new walls and a floor. 

Oh, no, said the Apple, there are so few 

Who come here on the mountain this way 

And when they do, they don't often see 

Why we're growing here, so far away. 

A long time ago we were planted by hands 

That worked in the mines and the mills 

When the country was young and the people who came 

Built their homes in the hills. 

But now there are cities, the roads have come 

And no one lives here today 

And the only signs of the farms in the hills 

Are the things not carried away 

Broken dishes, piles of boards, 

A tin plate, an old leather shoe. 

And an Apple tree still bending down 

And a Lilac where a garden once grew.