Your grandpa, when he was around, he did the best he could

Drank up many a job and home till he left for good

Your grandma sewed and kept her store and worked for every dime

Anxious for the six of us and old before her time.

I helped to raise the little ones till I was fourteen

Then off to London I did go to cook and serve and clean

I wrote my mother every week, sent her most my pay

I’ll tell you, Grace, what she told me the day I went away:

    Daughter, you must never say what you will not do

    You cannot know what bitter things the Lord may ask of you

    The years unborn, the rose and thorn, are hidden in God’s hand

    The dreams you chase, the love you waste, are swept away like sand.

My first love was a vicar, for a time I wore his ring

But soon enough I was to learn the changes time will bring

The next was Walter Parsons, working on the railroad

I married him all on the quick before my belly showed.

And when men came from Canada to sign up engineers

Your father turned his vision west and brushed aside my fears

Took you and Lil and Doddy from the home I gave you birth

And left your sister Olive in the hallowed Bristol earth.

    Daughter, you must never say where you will not go

    You might not sleep where you awoke or harvest what you sow

    The years unborn, the rose and thorn, are hidden in God’s hand

    The dreams you chase, the love you waste, are swept away like sand.

The winters and the highways were far longer than I dreamed

And working on the Grand Trunk wasn’t all that it had seemed

He fed the engine fire on his breath and blood and arm

At last he had to give it up, and turned his hand to farm.

With Jack and Ena babies yet, we hoped for a new start

But that first cropping season took the last strength of his heart

I know that you remember, Grace, that dry September day

I sent you children to the barn and watched him where he lay.

    Daughter, you must never say what you cannot bear

    The good Lord counts your every tear and each lock of your hair

    The years unborn, the rose and thorn, are hidden in God’s hand

    The dreams you chase, the love you waste, are swept away like sand.

The Belleville ladies told me that I must do what I can

“Put those children in a home, find another man,”

My sister too was widowed by the bloody fields of France

She brought her child to join us and to find another chance.

The merchants and the lawyers would not hear a mother’s woes

We were living on Welsh rabbit and salvaging old clothes

I took in travelling preachers and I rented out the soil

And I held this house together with my daily prayers and toil.

    Daughter, you must never say what you will not do

    You cannot know what bitter things the Lord may ask of you

    The years unborn, the rose and thorn, are hidden in God’s hand

    The dreams you chase, the love you waste, are swept away like sand.

Chords: (4/4)

       G               Em         C                   D

Your grandpa, when he was around, he did the best he could

  C              G           Am7               D7

Drank up many a job and home till he left for good

       G                Em                 C                D

Your grandma sewed and kept her store and worked for every dime

C               Em           Am7             G

Anxious for the six of us and old before her time.

   G                  Em           C              D

I helped to raise the little ones till I was fourteen

     C             G           Am7                  D7

Then off to London I did go to cook and serve and clean

    G             Em           C                D

I wrote my mother every week, sent her most my pay

      C                     G              Am7          D7

I’ll tell you, Grace, what she told me the day I went away:

G                  D          C                G

Daughter, you must never say what you will not do

     C               Bm                 Am              D

You cannot know what bitter things the Lord may ask of you

     G                 Em                  C               Bm

The years unborn, the rose and thorn, are hidden in God’s hand

      C                    G        Em         Am7             G

The dreams you chase, the love you waste, are swept away like sand.