In another time’s forgotten space1
your eyes looked from your mother’s face
Wildflower seed on the sand and stone
may the four winds blow you safely home
Roll away . . . the dew2
Roll away . . . the dew
Roll away . . . the dew
Roll away . . . the dew
I’ll tell you where the four winds dwell3
In Franklin’s Tower there hangs a bell4
It can ring, turn night to day
It can ring like fire when you lose your way
Roll away . . . the dew . . .
God save the child who rings that bell
It may have one good ring baby, you can’t tell
One watch by night, one watch by day
If you get confused listen to the music play
Roll away . . . the dew . . .
Some come to laugh their past away
Some come to make it just one more day
Whichever way your pleasure tends
if you plant ice you’re gonna harvest wind5
Roll away . . . the dew . . .
In Franklin’s Tower the four winds sleep
Like four lean hounds the lighthouse keep6
Wildflower seed in the sand and wind
May the four winds blow you home again
Roll away . . . the dew
Roll away . . . the dew
Roll away . . . the dew
Roll away . . . the dew
You better roll away the dew
Words by Robert Hunter
Music by Jerry Garcia
Compare Van Morrison’s 1968 song “Astral Weeks”:
In another time
In another place
In another time
In another place
In another face 69
Compare the folk song “Blow Away the Morning Dew” (Child, #112), with its refrain:
Sing, blow away the morning dew,
the dew and the dew
Compare also A Midsummer Night’s Dream and some lines (117–118) from 4.1: Theseus is describing his hounds, which “are bred out of the Spartan kind,” and he states, “Their heads are hung / With ears that sweep away the morning dew.”
In Greek mythology, the winds were Boreas or Aquilo, the north wind; Zephyrus or Favonius, the west; Notus or Auster, the south; and Eurus, the east.
The Tower of Winds, in Athens, located on the Agora, is an eight-sided tower constructed ca. 100–35 B.C.E. A frieze depicting the eight winds (yes, eight) runs along the top of the tower, which was used as a giant hydraulic timepiece.
Pursuing that tidbit, I also stumbled across a Tower of the Winds in the Vatican, built by Gregory XIII, and known as the Torre dei venti. So the idea of the winds living in a tower seems to be ancient and pervasive.
There is also a biblical reference to the four winds in Zechariah 2:6: “I have spread you abroad as the four winds of heaven.”
Fats Domino had a hit with a song titled “Let the Four Winds Blow.”
A franklin was a medieval English landowner of free but not noble birth.
Compare the biblical quotation from Hosea 8:7:
For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.
Also compare the wonderful concept, invented by Kurt Vonnegut in Cat’s Cradle, of Ice Nine (after which the Grateful Dead’s publishing company was named, whose logo is the I Ching symbol for Gathering Together, Holding Together).
Compare E. E. Cummings’s “All in green went my love riding” (1923):
All in green went my love riding
on a great horse of gold
into the silver dawn.
four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the merry deer ran before.
Fleeter be they than dappled dreams
the swift sweet deer
the red rare deer.
Four red roebuck at a white water
the cruel bugle sang before.
Horn at hip went my love riding
riding the echo down
into the silver dawn.
four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the level meadows ran before.
Softer be they than slippered sleep
the lean lithe deer
the fleet flown deer.
Four fleet does at a gold valley
the famished arrows sang before.
Bow at belt went my love riding
riding the mountain down
into the silver dawn.
four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the sheer peaks ran before.
Paler be they than daunting death
the sleek slim deer
the tall tense deer.
Four tall stags at a green mountain
the lucky hunter sang before.
All in green went my love riding
on a great horse of gold
into the silver dawn.
four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
my heart fell dead before. 70
Studio recording: Blues for Allah (September 1, 1975).
First performance: June 17, 1975, at Winterland in San Francisco. The tune remained in the repertoire thereafter.