Shearwater

Hail Mary

Shearwater


Oh hail Mary, full of death
Sing me a bitter song
As dark as the day is long
And as black as your eyes are wild
While the hail from the blackened cloud is raking the firmament
Destroying our argument
About the temperature and the time
Wild and unbroken 

We lay like a wounded lamb, facing a billygoat
Bowed down in our heavy coats
Under the force and the threat of his eyes
And we march in our rows and rows
Under a burning hand
Past the scars of the wounded land
Into a country of thorns and spines
Wild and unbroken 

Oh, God save the chamberlain
Oh, God save his appointed successor
But God saved his hardest face for you and all your kind
That's what's troubling me 

Hail Mary, sick and proud
And holding aloft the light
That would burn through a heaving night
And then leave us upon the rocks
And the child who is nearly born
Waits just to do you harm
Like the shock of a broken arm
Or a love that would burn you blind
Wild and unbroken