Achtung Emily or, U2 Meets P. B. S. Edited by Atara Stein
Seraph of Heaven! too gentle to be human,
Veiling beneath that radiant form of Woman
All that is insupportable in thee Of light, and love, and immortality!
Sweet Benediction in the eternal Curse!
Veiled Glory of this lampless Universe! Thou Moon beyond the clouds!
Thou living Form Among the Dead!
Thou Star above the Storm!
Thou Wonder, and thou Beauty, and thou Terror!
Thou Harmony of Nature's art!
You're honey child to a swarm of bees
Gonna blow right through you like a breeze
Give me one last chance
We'll slide down the surface of things ("Even Better than the Real Thing").
Thou Mirror In whom, as in the splendour of the Sun,
All shapes look glorious which thou gazest on!
Who's gonna ride your wild horses?
Who's gonna drown in your blue sea?
Who's gonna ride your wild horses?
Who's gonna fall at the foot of thee? ("Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses")
I never thought before my death to see
Youth's vision thus made perfect.
Emily, I love thee.
You're the real thing
Yeah the real thing
You're the real thing
Even better than the real thing ("Even Better than the Real Thing").
Would we two had been twins of the same mother!
Johnny take a dive
With your sister in the rain
Let her talk about the things
You can't explain ("Mysterious Ways").
I am not thine: I am a part of thee.
I disappeared in you
You disappeared from me ("So Cruel").
She met me, Stranger, upon life's rough way,
And lured me towards sweet Death; as Night by Day,
Winter by Spring, or Sorrow by swift Hope,
Led into light, life, peace.
When I was all messed up
And I heard opera in my head
Your love was a light bulb
Hanging over my head
Baby Baby Baby
Baby Baby Baby
Baby Baby Baby light my way ("Ultraviolet (Light my Way)").
See where she stands! a mortal shape indued
With love and life and light and deity,
And motion which may change but cannot die;
An image of some bright Eternity.
It's alright . . . it's alright . . . it's alright
She moves in mysterious ways ("Mysterious Ways").
Ah, woe is me!
What have I dared? where am I lifted? how
Shall I descend and perish not? I know
That Love makes all things equal: I have heard
By mine own heart this joyous truth averred:
The spirit of the worm beneath the sod
In love and worship blends itself with God.
We move through miracle days
Spirit moves in mysterious ways
She moves with it
She moves with it
Lift my days and light up my nights ("Mysterious Ways").
For in the fields of immortality
My spirit should at first have worshipped thine.
If you want to kiss the sky
Better learn how to kneel . . . (on your knees boy!) ("Mysterious Ways").
Then, from the caverns of my dreamy youth
I sprang, as one sandalled with plumes of fire,
And towards the loadstar of my one desire,
I flitted, like a dizzy moth.
A man will beg                          Love, we shine like a
A man will crawl                      Burning star
On the sheer face of love         We're fallin' from
Like a fly on the wall.               The sky . . . tonight ("The Fly").
One stood on my path who seemed
As like the glorious shape which I had dreamed,
As is the Moon, whose changes ever run
Into themselves to the eternal Sun;
The cold chaste Moon.
Johnny take a walk
With your sister the moon
Let her pale light in
To fill up your room ("Mysterious Ways").
They say the sun is sometimes eclipsed by a moon
Y'know I don't see you when she walks in the room ("The Fly").
And all my being became bright or dim
As the Moon's image in a summer sea,
According as she smiled or frowned on me.
And there I lay, within a chaste cold bed:
Alas, I then was nor alive nor dead.
Her skin is pale like God's only dove
Screams like an angel for your love
Then she makes you watch her from above
And you need her like a drug ("So Cruel").
Soft as an Incarnation of the Sun,
When light is changed to love, this glorious One
Floated into the cavern where I lay,
And called my Spirit.
Oh now
Here she comes
Take me higher
Take me higher
Can you take me higher?
Will you take me higher? ("Even Better than the Real Thing").
The day is come, and thou wilt fly with me.
We're free to fly the crimson sky
The sun won't melt our wings tonight ("Even Better than the Real Thing").
We shall become the same, we shall be one
Spirit within two frames, oh! wherefore two?
One passion in twin-hearts.
One life
With each other
Sisters
Brothers
One life
But we're not the same
We get to carry each other
Carry each other
One
One ("One").
One hope within two wills, one will beneath
Two overshadowing minds, one life, one death,
One Heaven, one Hell, one immortality,
And one annihilation. Woe is me!
The winged words on which my soul would pierce
Into the height of love's rare Universe,
Are chains of lead around its flight of fire--
I pant, I sink, I tremble, I expire!
Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief
All kill their inspiration and sing about the grief ("The Fly").

 

 

Note: Sections in plain text are from Shelley's Epipsychidion. Sections in italics are from U2's Achtung Baby (Island Records, 1991).

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