Lyrics A Sparrow On A Christmas Morning - Marko Hietala

A Sparrow On A Christmas Morning

Sleep the flowers of the vale underneath the snow
Turned to ice with winter’s grasp, water’s playful flow
A sparrow, a tiny one.
Cold north wants you undone
Turned to ice with winter’s grasp, water’s playful flow
At the yard of a poor man’s house, a girl kind and dear:
A seed for you my tiny one, a seed for you right here!
Oh, you poor homeless thing.
Christmas cannot make you sing
Seed for you my tiny one, seed for you right here!
Heart and wing afluttering, the girl and the bird
Featherlight touch on her palm and a voice she’s heard:
Blessings to you my dear!
Your kindness brought me here
Featherlight touch on her palm and a voice she’s heard
I have lived your life, oh child, and to you I tell,
That I am your brother’s ghost, and I knew you well
This seed grown by the sun, a kindness to a tiny one
Gift for your dead brother’s ghost.
Still he knows you well.
…There is also a note from Marco Hietala:
The story of the sparrow is a sad one.
Child death was way more frequent in the past of course.
Writer of the song Zacharias Topelius and his family lost their one
Year old son Rafael Topelius and Z.
Topelius' sorrow took a more concrete form in this particular poem.
The writer’s love of nature also comes across as the other of the
Main characters is a tiny bird.
Quite like in the «Sylvia's Song» also.
In this simple song the Finnish people have their own «Ghost of
Christmas» to compete with the ones Charles
Dickens wrote about in his «A Christmas Carol».