Van Der Graaf Generator - Scorched Earth

Stub towers in the distance
Riders cross the blasted moor
Against the horizon
Fickle promises of treaty
Fatal harbingers of war, futile orisons
Swirl as one in this flight, this mad chase
This surge across the marshy mud landscape
Until the meaning is forgotten
Hood masks the eager face, skin stretched and sallow
Headlong into the chilling night, as swift as any arrow

Feet against the flagstones
Fingers scrabbling at the lock
Craving protection
'Sanctuary!' croaks a voice
Half-strangled by the shock of its rejection
Shot the bolt in the wall, rusted the key;
Now the echoes of all frightful memory
Intrude in the silence
What a crawl against the slope - dark loom the gallows
One touch to the chapel door, how swiftly comes the arrow

"Compassion" you plead
As though they kept it in a box -
That's long since been empty
I'd like to help you somehow
But I'm in the self-same spot:
My condition exempts me
We are all on the run, on our knees;
The sundial draws a line upon eternity
Across every number
How long the time seems, how dark the shadow
How straight the eagle flies, how straight towards his arrow
How long the night is - why is this passage so narrow?
How strange my body feels, impaled upon the arrow

Just one crazy moment while the dice are cast
He looks into the future and remembers what is past
Wonders what he's doing on this battlefield
Shrugs to his shadow, impatient, too proud yet to kneel

In his wake he leaves scorched earth and work in vain;
Smoke drifts up behind him - he is free again
Free to run before the onslaught of a deadly foe
Leaving nothing fit for pillage, hardly leaving home
It's far too late to turn, unless it's to stone
Charging madly forward, tracks across the snow;
Wind screams madness to him, ever on he goes
Leaving spoor to mark his passage, trace his weary climb
Cross the moor and make the headland -
Stumbling, wayward, blind
In the end his footprints extend as one single line

This latest exponent of heresy is goaded into an attack
Persuaded to charge at his enemy
Too late, he knows it is
Too late now to turn back, too soon by far to falter
The past sits uneasily at his rear
He's walking right into the trap
Surrounded, but striving through will and fear
Ahead of him he knows there waits an ambuscade
But the dice slip through his fingers
And he's living from day to day
Carrying his world around upon his back
Leaving nothing behind but the tell-tale of his track

He will not be hostage, he will not be slave
No snare of past can trap him, though the future may
Still he runs and burns behind him in advanced retreat;
Still his life remains unfettered - he denies defeat
It's far too late to turn, unless it's to stone
Leave the past to burn - at least that's been his own

Scorched earth, that's all that's left when he's done;
Holding nothing but beholden to no-one
Claiming nothing, out of no false pride, he survives
Snow tracks are all that's left to be seen
Of a man who entered the course of a dream
Claiming nothing but the life he's known -
this, at least, has been his own

At night, this mindless army, ranks unbroken by dissent
Is moved into action and their pace does not relent
In step, with great precision, these dancers of the night
Advance against the darkness - how implacable their might!
Eyes undulled by moon, their arms and legs akimbo
They walk and live, hoping soon to surface from this limbo
Their minds, anticipating the dawn of the day
Shall never know what's waiting mere insight away -

too far, too soon

Senses dimmed in semi-sentience, only wheeling through this plane
Only seeing fragmented images, prematurely curtailed by the brain
But breathing, living, knowing in some measure at least
The soul which roots the matter of both Beauty and the Beast
From what tooth or claw does murder spring
From what flesh and blood does passion?
Both cut through the air with the pendulum's swing
In deadly but delicate fashion
And every range of feeling is there in the dream
And every logic's reeling in the force of the scream;
The senses sting
And though I may be dreaming and reality stalls
I only know the meaning of sight and that's all
And that's nothing

The columns of the night advance
Infectiously, their cryptic dance
Gathers converts to the fold -
In time the whole raw world will pace these same steps
On into the same bitter end

Somnolent muster - now the dancing dead
Forsake the shelter of their secure beds
Awaken to a slumber whose depths they dread
As if the ground they tread would give way
Beneath the solemn weight of their conception
I'd search the hidden corners of all this world
Make reason of the sensory whorl
If I only had time
But soon the dream is ended

Tonight, before you lay down to the sweetness of your sleep
Do you question your surrender to the drop from Lover's Leap
Or does the anaesthetic darkness take hold on its very own?
Does your body rise in service with not one dissenting groan?
These waking dreams of life and death
In the mirror are twisted and buckled;
Lashes flicker, a catch of breath
Skin whitening at the knuckles
The army of sleepwalkers shake their limbs and are loose
And though I am a talker, I can phrase no excuse
Not to rise again
In the chorus of the night-time I belong
And I, like you, must dance to that moonlight song
And in the end I, too, must pay the cost of this life
If all is lost none is known
And how could we lose what we've never owned?
Oh, I'd search out every knowledge that I could find
Unravel all the mysteries of mind
If I only had time
If I only had time
But soon my time is ended

Here at the glass -

All the usual problems, all the habitual farce

You ask, in uncertain voice

What you should do

As if there were a choice but to carry on

Miming the song

And hope that it works out right

Tonight it all seems so strange -

My spirit feels rigid, my body deranged;

Still that's only from one point of view

And we can't have illusion between me and you

My constant friend, ever close at hand

You and the undercover man

I reflect:

"It's very strange to be going through this change

With no idea what it's all been about

Except in the context of time..."

Oh, but I shirk it, I've half a mind not to work it all out

Is this madness just the recurring wave of total emotion
Or a hide for the undercover man
Or a litany - all the signs are there of fervent devotion -
Or the cracking of the dam?

It's cracked; smashed and bursting over you
There was no reason to expect such disaster
Now, panicking, you burst for air
Drowning, you know you care
For nothing and no-one but yourself
And would deny even this hand
Which stretches out towards you to help
But would I leave you in this moment of your trial?
Is it my fault that I'm here to see you crying?
These phantom figures all around you should have told you
You should have found out by now
If you hadn't gone and tried to do it all by yourself

Even now we are not lost:
If you look out at the night
You'll see the colours and the lights
Seem to say people are not far away
At least in distance
And it's only our own dumb resistance
That's making us stay
When the madness comes
Let it flood on down and over me sweetly
Let it drown the parts of me weak and blessed and damned
Let it slake my life, let it take my soul and living completely
Let it be who I am

There may not be time for us all to run in tandem together -
The horizon calls with its parallel lines
It may not be right for you to have and hold in one way forever
And yet you still have time
You still have time