To the sound of a voice that was almost a scream
 Oh oh oh
 From out of the city and out of the street
 Out where the wind hits the cold concrete
 Oh oh oh
 It's cold outside
 Darkness your enemy
 No place to hide
 The voice said this to me
 In your doorways I have shivered
 In your alleys I have gone to ground
 But I will be delivered
 Someday I will be mercy bound

 I dreamed again it was west L.A.
 On a crowded street on a hot summer day
 She was alone
 Three months late and beginning to show
 In a midriff blouse she would soon outgrow
 She had no one to call
 And no way home
 And in my mind
 I knew I'd seen myself
 But in our blindness
 It always seems like someone else
 There I was a rag a bone
 A remnant in your lost and found
 I was for once truly alone
 Longing to be mercy bound

 And I knew that I would wander as child in the forest
 Till they found me
 And I called out to them but I could not penetrate the silence
 All around me

 And when I wake I know you'll comfort me
 And I won't sleep again for an eternity
 But others lie awake at night
 In desperation more profound
 And the coming of the morning light
 Will not see them mercy bound

 And some will never dream again
 From sleeping on the ground
 Just longing to belong
 And dying to be mercy bound
 Oh please don't stop your dreaming
 Someday we'll all be mercy bound