Take This Longing - Leonard Cohen

Many men have loved the bells

You fastened to the rein

And everyone who wanted you

They found what they will always want again

Your beauty lost to you yourself

Just as it was lost to them

Oh take this longing from my tongue

Whatever useless things these hands have done

Let me see your beauty broken down

Like you would do for one you love

Your body like a searchlight

My poverty revealed

I would like to try your charity

Until you cry, «Now you must try my greed.»

And everything depends upon

How near you sleep to me

Just take this longing from my tongue

All the lonely things my hands have done

Let me see your beauty broken down

Like you would do for one your love

Hungry as an archway

Through which the troops have passed

I stand in ruins behind you

With your winter clothes, your broken sandal straps

I love to see you naked over there

Especially from the back

Oh take this longing from my tongue

All the useless things my hands have done

Untie for me your hired blue gown

Like you would do for one that you love

You’re faithful to the better man

I’m afraid that he left

So let me judge your love affair

In this very room where I have sentenced

Mine to death

I’ll even wear these old laurel leaves

That he’s shaken from his head

Just take this longing from my tongue

All the useless things my hands have done

Let me see your beauty broken down

Like you would do for one you love

Like you would do for one you love