2061: Odyssey Three
written by Arthur C. Clarke
part of Space Odyssey

A manipulative Southern belle carries on a turbulent affair with a blockade runner during the American Civil War

Picture yourself in a boat on a river, With tangerine trees and marmalade skies Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly, A girl with kaleidoscope eyes. Cellophane flowers of yellow and green, Towering over your head. Look for the girl with the sun in her eyes, And she's gone. {REFRAIN} Lucy in the sky with diamonds Lucy in the sky with diamonds Lucy in the sky with diamonds Ah... Ah... {VERSE 2} Follow her down to a bridge by a fountain Where rocking horse people eat marshmallow pies, Everyone smiles as you drift past the flowers, That grow so incredibly high. Newspaper taxis appear on the shore, Waiting to take you away. Climb in the back with your head in the clouds, And you're gone. {REFRAIN} Picture yourself on a train in a station, With plasticine porters with looking glass ties, Suddenly someone is there at the turnstile, The girl with kaleidoscope eyes. {REFRAIN REPEATED AND FADED}

(Written on Expeditionary Force Leave, 1915) For the last time, maybe, upon the knoll I stand. The eve is golden, languid, sad. Day like a tragic actor plays his role To the last whispered word and falls gold-clad. I, too, take leave of all I ever had. They shall not say I went with heavy heart: Heavy I am, but soon I shall be free, I love them all, but oh I now depart A little sadly, strangely, fearfully, As one who goes to try a mystery. The bell is sounding down in Dedham vale: Be still, O bell: too often standing here When all the air was tremulous, fine and pale, Thy golden note so calm, so still, so clear, Out of my stony heart has struck a tear. And now tears are not mine. I have release From all the former and the later pain, Like the mid sea I rock in boundless peace Soothed by the charity of the deep-sea rain.... Calm rain! Calm sea! Calm found, long sought in vain! O bronzen pines, evening of gold and blue, Steep mellow slope, brimmed twilit pools below, Hushed trees, still vale dissolving in the dew, Farewell. Farewell. There is no more to do. We have been happy. Happy now I go.