Beau - Rooks And Ravens lyrics

Oh, the prisons were full and the chains were all taken And silence was bought in the pa**age of time. And the wolves on the hills howled for the forsaken Who, painted in glory, came bonded and shaken; Stood shackled and shambling and nailed to the vine Like old friends of mine. The sky lost its light to an overcast evening, When criminal corporals stood spitting out pips. And the rain pounded down on a sergeant whose dreaming Seemed only to stretch to the stutter and screaming Of the two Smith & Wessons that hung from his hips - From the smile on his lips. All the mirth and the mercy in slumber were sleeping To no-one's amazement, or even surprise. And deep in the darkness, the wails of the weeping Lie drowned in the sound of the blue lightning leaping Out from the dark of the Judge's blue eyes That all mercy defies. So the circus parades in its bells and its leather. Its clowns and its jugglers ride the trapeze. And with smiles and with sentences tumbled together, The honey pot glistens, the bear slips its tether And all that is heard is the buzz of the bees In their high galleries. So the sentence is spoken with scarcely a quiver; A few weighted words in the balance of trade. And who will deny he suppresses a shiver? Whilst ever the factory can fail to deliver, The meat is marooned on the edge of the blade - 'Til an ace has been played. So the lessons have ended, and the college stays shuttered, And the churches have closed on the wayward divine; On the solid gold statues and the dirges they muttered. As they danced in the light of the candles that guttered, The rooks and the ravens stayed hard to define Like old friends of mine.