Rain on Berlin

Copyright ©2005 by Eva Van Daele-Hunt (Wiest)
All Rights Reserved
Lyrics posted by permission of the author

An encounter by chance, love at a glance
on a rainy, gray day in Berlin,
a passion divine – it was spring '39
and the peace in their country wore thin.

When he left for the war she felt empty and sore,
all her dreams filled with bloodshed and fright.
Endurance was frail. When all hope seemed to fail
he called on his lover one night.

Chorus: Smile your smile, lovely lady,
and I'll be with you all of your life,
when I'm home from the war we will part nevermore
and be lovers and husband and wife.

The following day found her cheerful and gay,
though no letters arrived from the line.
In those troubled, dark years she stilled all her fears
with a memory, strong and benign.

Then pain shook the ground, there was death all around
when bombs fell like rain on Berlin.
In fire and screams she held on to her dream
and the promise she sheltered within.

Chorus: Smile your smile. . .

May '45, alone and alive,
her world lay in dust and debris.
It was cold in Berlin. When hunger set in
planes carried hope to the Spree.

So she started anew, built a future for two,
for a dream that she would not forget.
'Missing' meant naught – she still cherished the thought
that he'd be restored to her yet.

Chorus: Smile your smile. . .

As the years came and went she stayed calm and content,
saw the wall being built and torn down,
and she felt no concern, for she knew he'd return
and rain softly fell on her town.

She lived on her own in an old people's home,
her nurse called her 'Lady Serene',
he had met queerer folk and seldom would joke
when she talked to her lover unseen.

Chorus: Smile your smile. . .

He came back one night, his hair sparse and white,
his small glasses set slightly askew,
his coat soaked with rain, his back bent in pain,
but his eyes were the ones that she knew.

When they found her next day she had faded away
wearing brittle, old clothes from the war,
her face lined and bland, but a ring on her hand
that no-one had noticed before.

Chorus: Smile your smile, lovely lady,
I have been with you all of your life,
we will part nevermore, for I'm home from the war
to call on my lover and wife – my beautiful lover and wife.