For those who buried their sons
Under bone white crosses
For those who saw their daughters
Virtues were taken by invading forces

They promised the century to you
And all you did was count the dead
And pray for merciful release
In the longest and the darkest night

Where greater men have fallen
Here we stand guard
Where greater men have fallen
Until the end of time

They made you build your tomb
With your own very hands
And ground your kin to dust
In the dark satanic mills of progress

It seems the lands of the free
Are born of the cold and empty grave
And the myths of liberty
Bind our wrists like slaves

Where greater men have fallen
Here we stand guard
Where greater men have fallen
Until the end of time

Where greater men have fallen
Is where we stand guard

And you will always bury your sons
Under broken barren promises
And the heart of your motherland
Will be ripped from her chest

Where greater men have fallen
We are ready to die
Where greater men have fallen
We are ready to die

In terrible silence you stood at the world's end
And you crawled into... into the sun
Blinded by the fire that seared your heart
And the seething tongues of the lies we became

And I sat in Babel's tower
And I judged the world
Not that I said I spoke the language
Of saints and sinners
But I preached that the world was flat
And slipped beneath the cracks

In horror I strode to the world's end
Saw some torn by hunger, others by steel
But by bitter fortune we cursed the heathen men
And the holy yet found no relief

And we sat in Babel's tower
And we fought over the world
And I never spoke the language
Of your saints and thy sinners
Of men nor beast
Who roamed this flat earth

And we sat in judgement in Babel's tower

Liars tongues, they seethe in fire
At the end of harsh white lines
We set the world to rights in Babel's tower
Yet I woke in the same black spirit state once again
We are awoke again in Babel's tower

Men of straw burn the fields
As far as the eye can see
A wretched warning is delivered
To the men of words and deeds

The Jericho trumpet sounds
In the deepest valleys and hills
Pounding the walls to dust
You scrawled your names in death upon

One thousand years
Welcome the flood
One thousand years
Come the flood

This dreadful history we have sired
Is the black bleached future you have desired
The embers of your ashen dreams
Are raked and scattered upon a pauper's grave

One thousand years of rain
Welcome the flood
Unburden us of pain
Welcome the flood

Wash my wounds, the blood from my hands
Wash the blood from these lands
With one thousand years of rain

These are the traitors you called out
One by one against the wall
You wanted the President's dead
And the wrists of the state bound
In the books of the dead

The myths of martyrs
You created in the revolution
Ring deep and hollow
Now what will you do?
When the barren earth
That bears your scar
Demands the seed of tyrants
And not the reason of the mob

Where there should be rage
There is weeping and silent conformity
Where cities should burn
There is defeat so raise this pyre to infamy
Where are the hands that hewed our future from rubble
Not every statue to the great was conceit

If the church had one neck
I would wring it
If the state had one artery
I would sever it
Torches to the parliament of swine
And iron to the rights of fools

Our knees were cracked and broken
Genuflect in dirt and broken glass
Grinds the teeth as black as the demons
Of the cloth that come at night
To rape our wretched flesh at the alter

The ghosts of the charnel house
Were born to deathless guilt
The ghosts of the charnel house
Were born to shameful night

Pale backs are ripe from the lash
Fingers worked to the bone
Scavengers of the cross
Flicker in perdition's light

Rancid leather and rotten faith
Whelts young skin
Charnel fodder for an unmarked grave
In the house of the lord

The poor mouth speaks
Of begging bowl politics
It's words cast long shadows
From the doorway of the charnel house
To every ploughed field
And rotten ear of corn
We are born of deathless guilt
And shameful night

We are in deep water now
Our rotten bond is a sickness of soul
How we loathe and envy
All murderers in equal measure

What pale god is this
Whose robes you wear
What iconoclasm upon the
Wings of pestilence
Has swept the halls of the pious
And dulled your blade
As you prepare for death

When he had spoken
Stretch out your arms
Embrace the flame of fire
He was consumed and arose
You will have this world
Whether you will it or not
In hell's cold light we will sit
And judge them all

If there is a reward for this
When shall it come?
When shall the trumpet sound
Ominous and deep
To the ends of the earth

( to William Blake )

Maybe you tried to gather the world in your arms
Pushed my words aside and sought fiery revelation
Martyrs seem in good company, but they are alone
As the day we made them, so hold your tongues
And steal pride's pleasure

My lack of faith, was not wanted here
You want your tragedy for your own ends
As martyrs we are born to die

Like Agrippa we poured, over the secrets of life
Into the long hours and buried our hearts
And even then I knew I could not save you
You gazed into the abyss and it gazes back at you
And now more than half of my life is through
I have saved the least for last and it is for you

Who would pray to anything but the mountain
And wish for anything but lightening to split the night
Who would praise anything but the sun above
That brings each dawn and our radiant day

What man places faith in his heart
Above the animal that rages deep inside
What man asks forgiveness yet
Lies to himself his whole life

Let the animal hunt on the mountainside
And let lightening split my heart in two
Let me howl at the moon with desire
And stretch my arms wide to embrace the sun
Return to the earth that bore me
For there is nothing more