Lizard

Prince Rupert Awakes

 

Farewell the temple master's bells

His kiosk and his black worm seed

Courtship solely of his word

With Eden guaranteed.

For now Prince Rupert's tears of glass

Make saffron sabbath eyelids bleed

Scar the sacred tablet of wax

On which the Lizards feed.

 

Wake your reason's hollow vote

Wear your blizzard season coat

Burn a bridge and burn a boat

Stake a Lizard by the throat.

 

Go Polonius or kneel

The reapers name their harvest dawn

All your tarnished devil's spoons

Will rust beneath our corn.

Now bears Prince Rupert's garden roam

Across his rain tree shaded lawn

Lizard bones become the clay --

And there a Swan is born

 

Wake your reasons' hollow vote

Wear your blizzard season coat

Burn a bridge and burn a boat

Stake a Lizard by the throat.

 

Gone soon Piepowder's moss-weed court

Round which upholstered Lizards sold

Visions to their leaden flock

Of rainbows' ends and gold.

Now tales Prince Rupert's peacock brings

Of walls and trumpets thousand fold

Prophets chained for burning masks

And reels of dream unrolled . . .

 

 

The Battle of Glass Tears

 

Night enfolds her cloak of holes

Around the river meadow.

Old moon-light stalks by broken ploughs

Hides spokeless wheels in shadow.

Sentries lean on thorn wood spears

Blow on their hands, stare eastwards.

 

Burnt with dream and taut with fear

Dawn's misty shawl upon them.

Three hills apart great armies stir

Spit oat and curse as day breaks.

Forming lines of horse and steel

By even yards march forward.

Songtext: Sinfield, Peter