royal command

 to mete out magics is no complex task

a sterner duty comes to try the heart

we leave the hangman to his gentle art

and do not hear the hungry when they ask

for dryest crumbs nor grant drops from the flask

compassion is not what we would call smart

just fling the bodies on the diggers' cart

and do not seek to look behind the mask

so many lies and all upon the page

that  hide plain fact behind a scrim of glare

we would not have you see the world entire

as simple subject for your honest rage

nor yet as calling forth a word of rage

respectful silence now until the fire

 

ballade of doubt

 no one will think an error self-corrects

blind folk see better than those who have led

our startled crew and learned from the effects

that it were better if they all had bled

completely flat and nothing more were said

it being time now to express true rage

and letting no kind words the mood assuage

we will not let the hero get the blame

it is our duty now to set the stage

before we pass into the final flame

 

the kind of man who his own thought collects

might think that there was time to prevent dread

but he who speaks knows best what he expects

when facing those who he with lies has fed

at the right moment when the world turns red

he has learned swiftly their weak minds to gauge

and shows himself to them as king and sage

while not revealing the whole thing is a game

there's no defence monocyte macrophage

before we pass into the final flame

 

you might have thought of these human defects

as bringing matters to a stirring head

but not a one here fact with fact connects

or sorts the clearly living from the dead

all are just here to earn a little bread

make some small money collect daily wage

for that alone they would their time engage

you might think that a kind of mortal shame

it's not their task to answer your hard gage

before we pass into the final flame

 

prince you might wonder at these things backstage

but they're the matter of our dying age

we say the words and give the facts a frame

but that's no more than simple persiflage

before we pass into the final flame

time for a change

 your duty is to serve without a pause

those who are worse than you and who must hurt

your heart and soul and give you justest cause

to overturn them and cast into dirt

all of their forces you must disconcert

those who expect that you are just a pawn

who do not think that you get your desert

night lasts its time but the earth turns to dawn

 

the ones who always get loudest applause

are those who in their way have to assert

entitlement both to tears and guffaws

it takes you little effort to exert

your claim to justice that is not covert

against a force that is not soon withdrawn

it is no easy matter to assert

night lasts its time but the earth turns to dawn

 

we find it written in a complex clause

that scholars have no reason to pervert

reason is subject to no human laws

we must to basic principles revert

and from its course the evil power divert

by dint of honesty as well as brawn

until the force of terror lies inert

night lasts its time but the earth turns to dawn

 

prince we are flattered you have not been curt

and have not chosen our hopes to subvert

these are the times when hopes are not yet gone

we might with many choices have to flirt

night lasts its time but the earth turns to dawn

when mosquitoes come

 at sunset when mosquitoes come to play

their urgent buzzing games of sucking blood

the darkness comes upon us like a flood

we long for cleansing light of the next day

behind the net there is not much to say

outside the frogs are croaking in the mud

a misplaced word falls now with heavy thud

this is the season when thought goes astray

smoke blends with fog in the short humid night

as all our measures pause within the heat

not one is certain and they all seem wrong

in their slow circle all the clouds move right

over the mountains to a steady beat

and deep within each heart there is a song

from the first echo

 from the first echo of the shout of doom

there was a sense that time itself would lend

the means by which those who could best attend

would start by emptying each cluttered room

in the clear daylight no dull weight of gloom

would keep us back nor hold us from that end

which in our hearts we have to comprehend

the universe is not truly a womb

name what we suffer and it does not die

there are no magics here nor ever were

faith cannot work to save us from our fate

it always seems that we desire the lie

want one more moment simply to confer

upon ourselves the burden of deep hate