The Haunted Palace

   












    In the greenest of our valleys

    By good angels tenanted,

    Once a fair and stately palace—

    Radiant palace—reared its head.

    In the monarch Song’s dominion,

    Holding forth beyond compare

    House of Quill Repute and Vision 

    Muse and Poets mingled there

Kris Kristofferson & Bob Beckham - Combine Music

Banners rippling, glorious, golden,

    On its roof did float and flow

    (This—all this—was in the olden

    Time of craftsmen long ago)

    And every gentle air that dallied,

    In that sweet and tuneful day,

    Grew in spirit those who gathered,

    Guitars twanged for servant’s pay.

Frank Trainor signs publishing deal with Combine Music

Group of Nashville, home of the Kris Kristofferson
and Larry Gatlin catalogs. – Music Scene

   Wanderers in that happy valley,
   Through two luminous windows, saw
   Spirits moving musically
   To each guitar’s well-tuned law,
   And round about a throne there, sitting,
   Beckham,
   Well befitting, 
   The ruler of the realm was seen.

Frank Trainor & Bob Beckham - Combine Music

All with gold and platinum glowing 
Was the open palace door,
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing
And sparkling brightly evermore,
Troops of Echoes, whose sweet duty
Was but to sing,
In voices of surpassing beauty,
The wit and wisdom of their king. 

Combine Music songwriters Frank Trainor & Mel McDaniel

    But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
    Assailed the monarch’s high estate;
    (Ah, let us mourn!—for never morrow
    Shall dawn upon him, desolate!)
    And round about his home the glory
    That blushed and bloomed,
    Is but a dim-remembered story
    Of that old time now entombed.

   And travelers, now, within that valley, 
   Through the stain glassed windows see
   Vast forms that move fantastically
   To a discordant melody;
   While, like a ghastly rapid river,
   Through the pale paneled door
   A hideous throng rush out forever,
   And laugh—but smile no more.