Broadways Ragtime-our Children Lyrics

Ragtime-our Children Lyrics

MOTHER

How they play,

Finding treasure in the sand.

They're forever hand in hand,

Our children.



TATEH

How they laugh, 

She has never laughed like this.



MOTHER

Every waking moment, bliss.



BOTH

Our children.



TATEH

See them running down the beach.

Children run so fast...



MOTHER

Toward the future...



TATEH

From the past.



MOTHER

How they dance,

Unembarrassed and alone.



BOTH

Hearing music of their own, Our children.



TATEH

One so fair,



MOTHER

And the other, lithe and dark.



BOTH

Solemn joy and sudden spark,

Our children.

See them running down the beach.

Children run so fast

Toward the future

From the past.

There they stand, 

Making footprints in the sand,

And forever, hand in hand,

Our children.

Two small lives,

Silhouetted by the blue,

One like me 

And one like you.

Our children. 

Our children.



MOTHER

Well.



TATEH

You say that often. "Well".



MOTHER

It's because I don't know what to say, Baron.



TATEH

I'm not a Baron, of course. I'm a poor immigrant, a Jew,

who points a camera so that his child can dress as beautifully

as a princess. I want to drive from her memory every 

tenement stench and filthy immigrant street. I will buy her

light and sun and clean wind of the ocean for the rest of her

life. Now you know me. Now you understand. I am no Baron.

I am Tateh.



MOTHER

Now I know even less what to say.



TATEH

Now it's my turn: Well.



MOTHER

Thank you for your confidence. I shall keep it here.