I've heard stories told ...

I've heard stories told
of Knights who were bold,
and survived many winters fighting in the cold;
I've heard songs song,
of martyrs dying young,
and fallen men, who fell still strong.

Yet to try to be at all like them,
is that what we need to make us men?
must we die and only then
become the men we can be proud of.
Maybe only when they take the shroud off,
can we shake the un-achieving shame off.

To live in death? is that the way,
t'give more than breath to seizing the day,
must we live and die, to have a great day?
Please tell me there is a better way.

"Live, my child, then die if need be,
know that more than yourself doth need thee,
let not the wants of old still bleed thee
be no more than thou dost need be.
If thou be that, then thou shalst see,
more than those dead folk e'er shall be."

But in the competative world we live in,
you must fight to survive, or you may as well give in,
if you're not prepared to work day and night,
then someone else will, then they'll win the fight
to the top, and you'll stop
and because you weren't martyred,
you've lost, your a flop,
and you're dreams will have parted,
and never be achieved?
Then what of the life you say we should love,
its less use than the sixth fingure on a glove.

"Yet the one who works thru day and thru night,
Will wake up one morning feeling like shite,
with his family gone, and his work is his life,
he's got no seed, 'cause he's got no wife,
and his lonliness slices his heart like a knife,
'cause he's parted without ever getting near life
except from behind a sheet of clear glass,
through which he can watch a happy world pass.
Yes, he's got power, but hour after hour
of his life slips away and he hasn't the power
to stop it,
to crop it,
to make of his life any more than his work.
So when you look at the flash cunt driving his merc
pity that bloke 'cause he is a berk
whose thrown away the only thing dear,
the brief passage of time that we have down here.
So when you hear songs being sung
of martyred men dying young,
and fallen men who fell still strong,
love their tales, respect their deeds,
but you havn't failed if you never need
to live like them, just live as you,
and do what it is that you must do
to cope with whatever life throws at you."

I know that the riches of the soul
and a loving use of time,
are enough to turn the alchemical gold
of a million sad souls sold
to the crime
of work
into something new,
something good,
something touching on beauty.
But I want more,
I want to say I lived and saw,
I passed thru the doors of experience
'where-thru gleams the untravelled world,'
the new country.
I want to live the life of kings,
float on diamond studded wings
over the hills and far away.
Kings are no longer born to be great,
they make themselves so through work,
though, I admit I hate
to say it, the berk in the merc
is seen as success,
in this world we're materialistic to excess.
If I want to say i've lived
If I want to say I didn't drift,
If I took the hand of Eve and kissed
her fair lips,
I need to work,
and that's all there is.

"Alright then,
work.
All I'm saying is, if you work too much
you'll look back and find your life gone,
and so what's he point of working to excess?
That's all I'm saying,
yes, work,
I'm not a berk,
I know you need money,
but, conversation's free,
time is free,
a park on a summers day,
a game of football,
a joke,
a laugh,
a smile,
you don't need money for these,
and if you work too hard you'll foget what they feel like.
Don't.
They are great,
they are life's rewards
to its lovers.
Regret is times punishment
to the work muggers."