Words:
Rhysling, as told to
Robert Heinlein
Tune: Unknown, though it happens to work with
Gilligan's Island
The
arching sky is calling
Spacemen back to their
trade.
All hands!
Stand by!
Free falling!
And the lights below us fade.
Out ride the sons of
Terra.
Far drives the thundering jet.
Up leaps the
race of
earthmen,
Out far, and onward yet--
We pray for one last
landing
On the
globe that gave us birth;
Let us rest our eyes on the
fleecy skies
And the cool
green hills of Earth.
We rot in the molds of
Venus.
We
retch at her tainted breath.
Foul are her flooded jungles,
Crawling with
unclean death.
We've tried each spinning space
mote
And reckoned its true worth;
Take us back again to the homes of men
On the cool
green hills of
Earth.
The
harsh bright soil of
Luna,
Silent and dead as the
grave,
Holds not the souls of Earthmen
Whose lives for Earth's they gave.
The rust-red
Martian deserts,
Her lonely wandering sands,
Are naught but
alien visions
To who on her surface stands.
Let the
sweet fresh breezes heal me,
As they rove around the girth
Of our lovely
mother planet
And the
cool green hills of Earth.
The
stars that shine around us
Are
torches on the road
Ebon, extending forever,
And with
great peril sowed.
But we must travel
onward,
Outward, then
outward again,
Exploring the uttermost reaches
Far beyond the
realm of men.
My
heart turns
home in longing
Across the
voids between,
To know beyond the
spaceship
The hills of Earth are green.
Across the seas of
darkness,
The good
green Earth is
bright;
Oh, star that was my homeland,
Shine down on me tonight.
We pray for one last landing
On the globe that gave us birth;
Let us rest our eyes on the fleecy skies
And the cool green hills of Earth.