The Queen and the Soldier

The soldier came knocking upon the queen's door

He said, "I am not fighting for you any more

"The queen knew she'd seen his face someplace before

And slowly she let him inside.

He said, "I've watched your palace up here on the hill

And I've wondered who's the woman for whom we all kill

But I am leaving tomorrow and you can do what you will

Only first I am asking you why.

"Down in the long narrow hall he was led

Into her rooms with her tapestries red

And she never once took the crown from her head

She asked him there to sit down.

He said, "I see you now, and you are so very young

But I've seen more battles lost than I have battles won

And I've got this intuition, says it's all for your fun

And now will you tell me why?"

The young queen, she fixed him with an arrogant eye

She said, "You won't understand, and you may as well not try"

But her face was a child's, and he thought she would cry

But she closed herself up like a fan.

And she said, "I've swallowed a secret burning thread

It cuts me inside, and often I've bled"

He laid his hand then on top of her head

And he bowed her down to the ground.

"Tell me how hungry are you? How weak you must feel

As you are living here alone, and you are never revealed

But I won't march again on your battlefield"

And he took her to the window to see.

And the sun, it was gold, though the sky, it was gray

And she wanted more than she ever could say

But she knew how it frightened her, and she turned away

And would not look at his face again.

And he said, "I want to live as an honest man

To get all I deserve and to give all I can

And to love a young woman who I don't understand

Your highness, your ways are very strange.

"But the crown, it had fallen, and she thought she would break

And she stood there, ashamed of the way her heart ached

She took him to the doorstep and she asked him to wait

She would only be a moment inside.

Out in the distance her order was heard

And the soldier was killed, still waiting for her word

And while the queen went on strangeling in the solitude she preferred

The battle continued on