[Verse 1] You draw a circle in the frost, Upon a window facing east, And watch the morning swallow stars As daylight gathers underneath. You do not know how many winters Will come and go before you’re gone, Or how the sun will keep on rising When there’s no one left to call it dawn. [Pre-Chorus 1] You’ll wear the years upon your shoulders, You’ll watch the summer turn to snow, And every season that you witness Will leave you something you can’t hold. [Chorus] Oh, what a wonder to be fleeting, To have a heartbeat, have a name, To love a world that keeps on turning, Though it will never stay the same. You are a moment in forever, A breath the centuries won’t save, But what a thing to walk this earth And know the beauty of your days. [Verse 2] The house you knew will change its colors, The walls will hold another’s dreams, A child will laugh beneath your window And never know you’ve heard the same. The trees will grow beyond your reaching, Their roots will split the garden stone, And someone else will watch the sunrise From a place you once called home. [Pre-Chorus 2] You’ll never know the names they answer, They’ll never know the name you bore, But they’ll look up at autumn’s ending And feel the things you felt before. [Chorus] Oh, what a wonder to be fleeting, To have a heartbeat, have a name, To love a world that keeps on turning, Though it will never stay the same. You are a moment in forever, A breath the centuries won’t save, But what a thing to walk this earth And know the beauty of your days. [Bridge] A thousand years will take the houses, Ten thousand more will change the shore, The rivers will forget their courses, The mountains won’t be mountains anymore. The cities built upon our longing Will fall beneath the patient rain, And every monument to living Will yield its stone and lose its name. But long before the final silence, Before the last of what we made, There lived a thousand generations Who loved beneath these changing days. They held their children through the winter, They kissed beneath the summer rain, And though the earth forgot their footsteps, They were here all the same. [Final Chorus] Oh, what a wonder to be fleeting, To have a heartbeat, have a name, To share this world with countless others, Though none of us were made to stay. We are the moments in forever, The breaths the centuries won’t save, But what a thing to walk this earth And know the beauty of your days.
