The green covered place that I went to in spring With a notebook and what cigarettes I could bring The cloverleaf crossing now ties in a ring And how the beautiful changes When the men with a dream who are never refused Drum up the exciting to reap the unused The lovers are judged and condemned unaccused And the beautiful dies with the harvest Now the loveliest creatures that God ever made Have all picked a partner and joined the parade Where they'll crack up together from making the grade And how the beautiful changes They pull into the kerb and they crowd out the bars Watching an astronaut fall toward Mars He's talking in clichés that put out the stars And the beautiful dies with the harvest Too late is the way a man finally learns The light of salvation recedes and returns As you freeze with the cold or you croak from the burns And how the beautiful changes In the pink of the sunset high over the park The con trails are tracing their spiral and arc As the angels turn eastwards to fight back the dark And the beautiful dies with the harvest With gaps in the fabric regrets never mend I've seen the eternities crawl to their end The comedown of many a fine feathered friend And how the beautiful changes There's a fine line between love of living and greed Say the men of affairs and deliberate speed As the ugly goes into the ground with the seed And the beautiful dies with the harvest Now the fire of redemption is a guttering flame A man is an image before he's a name And the deadly arrangement that fixes the game Is the way the inhuman is always the same And how the beautiful changes How the beautiful changes