Halberd

Lyrics

[Intro]


[Verse 1]
I was the geometry of the muddy field.
Eight feet of ash wood, crowned in steel.
The hook for the rider, the axe for the plate.
You had to have the shoulders to carry my weight.
I pushed your center of gravity out of your chest,
Until your body mapped an eight-foot radius of death.

[Pre-Chorus]
I was the pinnacle, the apex of the square.
The brutal mathematics of the open air.
And then came the smoke.

[Chorus]
I didn't fear the breaking of the line.
I didn't fear the iron that crossed with mine.
I feared the smell of sulfur on the morning breeze.
The spark, the flash, the sudden disease
Of a farm boy with a pipe and a pinch of black dust,
Turning three hundred years of discipline to rust.

[Verse 2]
Now I stand against the marble in the palace hall.
They tied a red silk tassel right beneath the langet.
Polished me so bright I just reflect the wall.
The passing crowd doesn't really understand it.
They stare at the spike and they think it looks grand.
They never feel the awful leverage in my hand.

[Bridge]
It wasn't a better blade that took my place.
It was the loud, sudden end of face-to-face.
The thunder cracked over the trench in the mud,
And a lead ball didn't care about the heat of your blood.
Or your training. Or the perfect angle of my swing.
It just made a ragged hole in everything.

[Chorus]
I didn't fear the breaking of the line.
I didn't fear the iron that crossed with mine.
I feared the smell of sulfur on the morning breeze.
The spark, the flash, the sudden disease
Of a farm boy with a pipe and a pinch of black dust,
Turning three hundred years of discipline to rust.

[Outro]
So I stand at attention behind the velvet rope.
Shiny and dull.

They look at the hook on my back.
They point their cameras at it.
They just think it's a shape...
Designed to be pretty.