The actor leaves the stage with a rose in his hand   He settles in the back seat his thoughts are like fine sand   Driven through the rain swept streets casting a melancholy stare   Upon two enraptured loves kissing without a care      The dreams of an actor spill slowly by   Like the thoughts of a dreamer or the casting of a die   Talking to gay fellows of the follies on which they perch   He saw a lovely lady beneath the arches of a church      Cigarettes in the airless twenties   An estate well filled with dust   In the evening reading Swinburne   Eating mightily with some false lust   But a kiss was what we found   On damp but friendly ground      The lady wore no makeup but she stood like a swan   Thin body of a dancer her dress was quietly torn   Her eyes searched his distant heart that lingered in the ram   But his friends caught his iron gaze and carried it away again      Broken hearted in the loveless twenties   Where a wink was like an embrace   Making love on blue fridays   From across some foggy space   But a kiss was what we found   On damp but friendly ground      Tea was like a mirror a reflection never there   His thoughts upon that ring of love that burned upon her stare   Her eyes her lips her chin her grace the rain upon her hair   Thus it gripped his white gloved heart can anyone be so fair      Untied in the breezy twenties   With a hand held in my arms   Bearing my heart to the hallowed spires   Of this quiet and ancient land   For a kiss was what we found   On damp but friendly ground