Mohism

Lyrics

I remember the dust motes in the light of the school.
Fourth century before the Christ you know.
The arguments were sharp, and kind, and clear.
Ten theses, measured out against the fear.

Your principle was simple, and impossible.
Love the neighboring state as you love your own.
Love the stranger's father as he were your kin.
Let merit be the gate you enter in.
This was the axiom, the universal thread.
From the words of the master, Mo Di, who is dead.

And then the paradox, the craftsman's gentle hand.
That drew the blueprints for defending the land.
The cloud-ladders, the crossbows, the rolling carts.
The engineering of these broken hearts.
You gave your science to the weak, the small.
You taught them how to build a better wall.

Oh, Mohism, the school of loving all.
The school that answered the besieged town's call.
You believed the heavens watched with an impartial eye.
And for this universal love, you had to die.
They scraped your name from the bamboo slips.
A taste of ash on the historian's lips.

The First Emperor required one world, one script, one thought.
The Han refined the lesson he had taught.
An order came to make the record clean.
A state philosophy, tidy and serene.
And against the letter, they set the knife's sharp edge.
To obliterate your pledge.

Two thousand years, you were a lacuna in a scroll.
A footnote that had lost its very soul.
But a workshop built on love can't be effaced for good.
Its logic stands where it has always stood.
I sing Jian Ai. (I sing of love for all).
I sing your name, and you answer the call.