A simple telescope An impulse buy from the market town Where cheap scented candles were three for a pound Where almost antiques are perused and discarded right under the shopkeepers' eyes I lost my girl to an eyepiece and the sky The bedroom slipping into disrepair The cellophane peels from a paperback book The wallpaper tears where the pictures once stood Street lights and dancing say much more to me than the cold sky at night With your telescope gathering light I'm left to my thoughts and I'm left to my records And I'll watch the back of your neck as you sit on your knees gazing up at the sky With your telescope gathering light You're lost to the world and you're closing an eye And I'm left all alone in the deafening quiet Looking for something to fill all those nights when you're lost gathering light We'd kiss like teenagers Who'd run away at seventeen Romantically plan for a summer abroad And make it as far as the next market town before midnight And heading back home Then I lost my girl to a small refracting lens An eyepiece and a cylinder of light The holiday sungla**es stay on the shelf Gathering dust by the traveller's globe Street lights and dancing say much more to me than the cold sky at night With your telescope gathering light I'll gather my thoughts and I'll long for the courage To pull down the shutters if I could discover some ways to distract From the telescope gathering light But you're lost to the world and you're closing an eye And I'm left all alone in the deafening quiet Looking for something to fill all those nights when you're lost gathering light So open up, let's run through the city tonight At least until the clouds dissipate