If You Were Coming in the Fall

Song Meaning

These lyrics plunge us into the mind of a speaker consumed by waiting, imagining increasingly grand ways to dismiss time if a reunion were guaranteed. There's an almost playful, yet deeply serious, dismissal of seasons and years, all in service of an anticipated arrival. The tone is one of intense longing, tinged with a desperate desire to control the uncontrollable. The central tension here isn't merely the act of waiting, but the profound difference between a *known* wait and an *unknown* one. The speaker is willing to conquer vast stretches of time—even life itself, suggesting "I'd toss it yonder, like a Rind"—if the waiting period is defined. This fierce determination to overcome any obstacle contrasts sharply with the ultimate torment caused by an indeterminate duration. The craft here is striking, particularly in how it makes abstract time tangible. The speaker would "wind the months in balls" and store them in drawers, an obsessive, almost childlike attempt to package and control the passage of time. This domestic imagery then expands to a willingness to count centuries until their "fingers dropped / Into Van Dieman's Land," an extreme commitment to the task, even if it leads to a desolate end. Yet, it's the final stanza that truly hits hard, pivoting from hypothetical control to present anguish. The uncertainty of "the length / Of this, that is between" goads the speaker "like the Goblin Bee -- / That will not state -- its sting." This powerful metaphor perfectly captures the specific torment of the unknown: it's not the pain itself, but the maddening anticipation of an unstated, unseen attack that makes the wait unbearable. The lyrics suggest that a definite, even vast, wait is preferable to the gnawing anxiety of an undefined one.