Iris DeMent - From The Oriental Notebook lyrics

How drunk we were, each with the other That marvelous night When only the Asian darkness gave us light And the watering can*ls were murmuring And the black carnation's scent pierced, like a sting And we walked alone through a city not ours Through a savage song And midnight heat—the Serpent coiled among The constellations in the thick-starred skies And we did not dare to turn and meet one another's eyes And it seemed as if ages walked with us Unseen, and as if an invisible hand were Striking a tambourine And there were stranger sounds, like Something we must mark Secret signals that whirled about us there, the dark Thus once, and only once, we alked Together, when of a sudden the moon like a Diamond sailboat swam into view Our parting meeting, the single encounter, we knew