Trebuchet

Lyrics

They dragged me green from the northern ridge,
Cut me square in the autumn rain.
I am fifty beams of weeping oak,
A captive ghost of the timber plain.
They fill the box with the river rock,
Fourteen tons of earth to pull the sky.
I hold the murder in my spine,
And wait to let the limestone fly.

I do not fear the arrow, I do not fear the rot.
I do not fear the tension in the knot.
I watch the fortress in the dust and the haze,
And I fear the end of my working days.
A sword goes home when the blood is dry,
But I am too heavy to bring inside.
When the great wall breaches and the mortar gives,
That is the exact moment I cease to live.

I do not aim. I only obey the arc.
I throw the geometry into the dark.
The men at the winch, they hold their breath,
Stepping back from the timber's edge.
Their bodies know the radius before the mind decides,
A holy terror if the iron pin slides.
I smell of tallow and uncured skin,
Waiting for the crumbling to begin.

I do not fear the arrow, I do not fear the rot.
I do not fear the tension in the knot.
I watch the fortress in the dust and the haze,
And I fear the end of my working days.
A sword goes home when the blood is dry,
But I am too heavy to bring inside.
When the great wall breaches and the mortar gives,
That is the exact moment I cease to live.

The sling whips over, the payload clears.
The valley is split by a thousand cheers.
I watch the parapet crack and bow.
It is over.
I am just firewood now.

They leave me standing in the mud.
They draw their iron. They go to blood.
The ropes go slack. The counterweight is still.
Just a wooden skeleton on a silent hill.

I was a god for a week.
Now the moss can have me.