The Last Song of War

THE LAST SONG OF WAR


White as snow the summer mist shall wake the final day
Cool as spring to kiss the sun that burns the dawn away;

Red the heart, the call to start, who beats the final drum
Red as blood with paint and mud, faces dark shall come;

Black shall be the banners’ laugh, one by one unfurled
The roaring wind to draw us from the shadows of the world;

Then rivers dark down valley pour, one song and sound and mind
Dark the birds before us soar, and dark the trees behind;

And soft the grasses shiver to the drums and to the feet
That call the horse and rider hence, one battle more to meet;

So stirs the Bones, our mighty home, beneath the filth she yearns
And hears the Breath rush down the fields, ‘Our Blood, our Blood returns!’

They ached to hear for endless years, the cry of every child
The first sons of the ancient woods, the daughters of the wild;

Then silver-green and slowly under sunlight, mile by mile
A wave rides ever close until the crest can see us smile —

‘O sons of sons of thieves, who march and shine in iron rows
You look already corpses to the black eyes of our crows.’

Then under foot a thunder rolls at last — the wave attacks
And sings the seething foam of spears, and dives upon our axe;

And we the cliff, the knife, the stone shall shatter them to mist
To hiss and fall and flounder in the shadow of our fist;

Far we force the flood and on, ere any foe shall flee
Til every hand to stain our land is flung into the sea;

Heart for heart shall be the debt, to pierce the final pain
A breath in fear, a breath to free — then none and none remain.

When silent rise the endless stars upon the barren land,
When every bone and every blade has slipped into the sand,

When softly sighs the shifting sea upon the lonely shore,
Listening for whispers on the wind forever more,

When all our blood in threads of red falls down into the deep,
When laughter haunts the halls of death, then you and I shall sleep.