There's a grief that can't be spoken,
There's a pain goes on and on.
Empty chairs at empty tables,
Now my friends are dead and gone.
Here they talked of revolution,
Here it was they lit the flame,
Here they sang about tomorrow and tomorrow never came.
From the table in the corner,
They could see a world reborn,
And they rose with voices ringing,
And I can hear them now
The very words that they have sung
Became their last communion
On this lonely barricade, at dawn.
Oh my friends, my friends forgive me
That I live and you are gone
There's a grief that can't be spoken,
And there's a pain goes on and on
Phantom faces at the window,
Phantom shadows on the floor,
Empty chairs at empty tables where my friends will meet no more.
Oh my friends, my friends don't ask me
What your sacrifice was for
Empty chairs at empty tables
Where my friends will meet no more