Genghis Khan

Ride, ride, ride thou figure from the East In thy curse hath many a mother wept On thy brow the furrows of distant steppes Yield unto a steely mask of doom Destruction follows in thy path and yet Methinks I spy a flicker of regret Extinguish it lest humanity engulf it betimes As distant lands fall under your encompassing sway. A fire burns, a coward trembles in his tent What's won is rent from hands too numb to feel The surging, coursing power of thy grip Let slip thine enemies, let thy repute Incite counsel of war then savor the fruit Of a thousand-footed gathering of days The purpled way, the jewel-encrusted chalice Of wine claret. Drink to your heart's content. If I were thou and thou wert I my friend I should not pause to see the ground below For lonely be the lofty heights, perpend: Far art faren, far remains to go Nor bride, nor bairn, nor comfort in repose Hath sped thee on thy way from whence we ride The rudest nutriments, the barest clothes Sans bed, sans friend, sans tout, bare ground thou lie'. Now polished steel glistens, mirrors gray The slanting dome of sky's inverted bowl Oiled leather on black courser's velvet skin And restless hooves an inch in sodden loam A leathern mask, five halberds thus skyward Stand, barren hillock's strange reeds Sprouting in the wind-swept smoke Of morning's hasty decampment. Thus proceed These men unto a destiny untold. Of Indus, Asia, Europe, northern climes Of snow, of sand and vine, the watery strand I sing. Dismount and pluck the crocus sweet But brief, then crush beneath thy heel. Spur on! Ghengis Khan! Of Afrique dark and thrice-looted Rome Thy story-tellers may rhyme and make song. Home, home rider from the East return Scorch the earth and burn to cindered ash Laugh with all the mirth thy new-found freedom Might yield unto thy solitary path Unlearn the lessons civil, richness hath Bone and marrow, thew and sinew softened Thy courser turn the sod, horizon calls Spur on! Sing thy song, thy name live on Ghengis Khan