Bright eyes

Posted by Vale

Remember Watership Down? The best selling childrens book about a band of rabbits?

Adams, the author, gives the warrens he writes about social structures and a strong lapin culture. There are even myths and legends. Even a rabbit version of the Grim Reaper himself who appears to rabbits as ‘the Black Rabbit of Inle’. Inle is Lapine for ‘moon’ or ‘darkness’.

The song – Bright Eyes – was written for the cartoon version of the book and is a lament for Hazel, leader of the band of rabbits, as he dies and goes to join the band of heroes who follow the rabbits’ trickster god El Ahrairah (Prince of a Thousand Enemies).

Eat your heart out Bambi.

Is it a kind of dream,
Floating out on the tide,
Following the river of death downstream?
Oh, is it a dream?

There’s a fog along the horizon,
A strange glow in the sky,
And nobody seems to know where you go,
And what does it mean?
Oh, is it a dream?

Bright eyes,
Burning like fire.
Bright eyes,
How can you close and fail?
How can the light that burned so brightly
Suddenly burn so pale?
Bright eyes.

Is it a kind of shadow,
Reaching into the night,
Wandering over the hills unseen,
Or is it a dream?

There’s a high wind in the trees,
A cold sound in the air,
And nobody ever knows when you go,
And where do you start,
Oh, into the dark.

Bright eyes,
burning like fire.
Bright eyes,
how can you close and fail?
How can the light that burned so brightly
Suddenly burn so pale?
Bright eyes.

Bright eyes,
burning like fire.
Bright eyes,
how can you close and fail?
How can the light that burned so brightly
Suddenly burn so pale?
Bright eyes.