Lyrics This Is Love* - Mary Chapin Carpenter

If you ever need to hear a voice in the middle of the night
When it seems so black outside that you can't remember light
Ever shone on you or the ones you love in this or another lifetime

And the voice you need to hear is the true and the trusted kind
With a soft familiar rhythm in these swirling unsure times
When the waves are lapping in and you're not sure you can swim
Well, here's the lifeline

If you ever need to feel a hand take up your own
When you least expect but want it more than you've ever known
Baby here's that hand and baby here's my voice that's calling

This is love
All it ever was and will be
This is love

If you ever need some proof that time can heal your wounds
Just step inside my heart and walk around these rooms
Where the shadows used to be
You can feel as well as see how peace can hover

Now time's been here to fix what's broken with its power
The love that smashed us both to bits, spent its last few hours
Calling out your name, I thought this is the kind of pain
From which we don't recover

But I'm standing here now with my heart held out to you
You would've thought a miracle was all that got us through
Well baby, all I know, all I know is I'm still standing

And this is love
All it ever was and will be
This is love
Standin' up for you baby, standin' up for me

And I see you still and there's this catch in my throat
And I just swallow hard till it leaves me
There's nothing in this world that can change what we know
Still I know I am here if you ever need me

And this is love

And if you ever think of me let it be around twilight
When the world has settled down
And the last round of sunlight is waning in the sky
As you sit and watch the night descending

A car will pass out front with lovers at the wheel
A dog will bark out back
And children's voices peal over and under the air
You've been there lost in the remembering

If you ever wish for things that are only in the past
Just remember that the wrong things aren't supposed to last
Babe, it's over and done and the rest is gonna come when you let it

And this is love
All that it ever was and will be
This is love, when you let it babe, if you let it now

This is love
All it ever was and can be
This is love