hot august day

there are deep echoes across the dry wall

so sky seems brassy and bereft of cloud

while goat is nimble and tempts you to fall

to stony death where no one will recall

how once you were so youthful and so proud

there are deep echoes across the dry wall

where the old vultures circle seeing all

the land below them forested or ploughed

while goat is nimble and tempts you to fall

from narrow path your heart now seems so small

and fate so large the silence seems so loud

there are deep echoes across the dry wall

the distant birds across the sky now scrawl

in ragged letters on the small puffy cloud

while goat is nimble and tempts you to fall

into forever certain none will bawl

the earth itself will be your only shroud

there are deep echoes across the dry wall

while goat is nimble and tempts you to fall

lash and chain

where no salvation comes from a dead lord

we're cast adrift and there's no guiding star

no symbol serves to act as luminar

and we have taken a strange one aboard

as sign and seal in these realms unexplored

of all our dangers yet we're not so far

beyond the norms of everyday devoir

but have paid more than mortals can afford

we asked for honesty and got hard stone

straight in the face nothing could be so plain

but to push onward is the single choice

that folk of honour have bred in the bone

regardless of the threat of lash and chain

or whether the old villains will rejoice

for emancipation day

no count of years may still the hand of fate

but yet the kindly sunrise eases pain

as those who fought arise to fight again

with little rancour and without debate

for once removed the horrors cease to grate

on any soul and there’s no longer strain

when each of us can see the future plain

and know that we’re the owners of the state

this is the promise made by those who sleep

beneath our soil whose lives gave ours full worth

that a bright morning would our people see

not as a flock of tired and hungry sheep

but as a folk in fullest time of mirth

enjoying every taste of liberty