You might think I'd yield
You might think I'd live up to
My own high ideal
And indeed my boast of reason
Reason and thought
Does imply I'd bend my back
To your implacable might

Keep me in line

Did I dream of peace
Did I wish for what
It's no matter to you
For you is what we have
Did I dream of peace
Did I wish for what
It's no matter
We stand at angels' grave
And I raise my shield

So you might take offence
Perhaps that's a sheen of surprise
In your eye I see
Few against many and we'll see
Who brought the most soldiers
To this field and to this age
I savour that glint, you've told me all I need

Keep me in business

Did I dream of peace
Did I wish for what
It's no matter to you
For you is what we have
Did I dream of peace
Did I wish for what
It's no matter
We stand at angels' grave
And I raise my shield

Keep me in line
Keep me in office
Keep me in business
Keep me insane

Did I dream of peace
Did I wish for what
It's no matter to you
For you is what we have
Did I dream of peace
Did I wish for what
It's no matter
We stand at angels' grave
And I raise my shield
But that's no matter to you
The spear intended for your dribbly organic waste of a brain
Is more of an immediate concern

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Did I wish for what- those don't sound quite right. And I think the "rise" might be "raise" instead. That's one of those tricky translation words in English. Or maybe I'm just not reading either line as it's meant. It wouldn't be the first time.

I'm curious about the background. It seems very current political to me.

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Haha, yeah, well, this was one I dug out of the archives so to speak.
The image frame work, so to speak, is actually the battle at Thermopylae. (Yesyesyes, I know lots of people have seen 300 now, and I like it myself... but I read about Achilles dragging the beat up corpse of Hector around the walls of Troy while most read Donald Duck)
What gripped me so hard was the realization how pivotal that one stand was - if Xerxes' horde hadn't been held there, Greece and Athens would have been conquered and with them the seed that eventually grew into our Western civilization. It could have ended there and then, but Leonidas and his men stopped it. So fuck it if Sparta was one of the harshest dictatorships in the history of humanity and it's inhabitants as pleasant as a chainsaw equipped maniac with a calculating expression in your direction... when I wanted to write something defiant versus those dickheads who are trying to pull us back to the dark ages, I thought if fitting to give a nod to them at the same time.

If I were to expound on all the back and cross references that goes through my head in the various lines we would still be here in a week, and anyway, as I see it that isn't really my headache when someone else reads it. But since you asked! "Did I wish for what", well, call it an expression of mood. The "I" of the text can remember the word peace, but doesn't see how it holds any practical value. What we have is the conflict, the barbarian and the defender, and though the barbarian might have stolen away the concept of peace, the defender still has his shield and will raise it regardless of threats and promises of rewards for submission from the barbarian.

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Thank you for the explanation. I thought it would be something like that.

I bet the old Duckmeister is more well known than Achilles though. QUACK!

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