Two choruses from The Anger of Achilles

1

There is a law above the law of man
  It has no name, but when we think of it
  And feel its power, what can we call it but
  Death

 Because we are aware of death
 Because we are aware
 
 Because, to throne the race of men above
 Creation's beastliness, Prometheus
 Graced mankind with the vanity of mind

 We mind the fleeting when
 Over the harmony of now,
 And fall like lightning to our graves
 Because all things that live are ruled by law

  There is a law above the law of man
  That calls us to rebel against our state
  It has no name, but when we think of it
  And feel its power, what can we call it but
  Life

 When Phaeton, son of Apollo, died
 Apollo threw submission to the dogs
 And yoked the tyrant Time to his chariot,
 Driving the flaming stallions of the sun
 Against their given course, to drag the day
 Back to the dawn before

 But he failed, for all his strength
 To do more than abuse the tortured earth
 And fashion failure from a godlike rage
 Because even the gods are ruled by law

  There is a law above the law of man
  That calls us to rebel against our state
  That orders respect even from immortals
  It has no name, but when we think of it
  And feel its power, what can we call it but
  Time

 Because we cannot rest until we die
 Because we cannot rest
 Life is the rage of always against never,
 Never to do more than abuse the earth

 And godlike Achilles, complete in revolt
 Drags the dead body of yesterday's triumph
 Down to the unforgiving grave of love

 His is the power of supremacy
 His equal's body fishes back and forth
 Behind his chariot, defiled
 Before the eyes of his father

 But not even Achilles can re-kill the dead
 Because all things that are
 Are ruled

  There is a law above the law of man
  That calls us to rebel against our state
  That orders respect even from immortals
  That unifies the breach of life and death
  It has no name, but when we think of it
  And feel its power, what can we call it but
  God


 
2
Here in the kingdom of time everlasting
 We sit before the life that lies ahead of us
 Like happy children in an empty theatre
 Thrilled at the anything-can-happen magic
 That shines the clearest when the stage is dark

 But when the play begins, when we have lived
 The only life we get, we look behind
 To see that what we once thought was our freedom
 Was just the prospect of the unportrayed

 God, let our days be what we do with them
 Not what they do to us

 Let us grow taller than the tree that bore us
 For the generation of men are like leaves
 Old ones dropped brittle to the withered grass
 Young shoots full of green promise in the spring
 Filling the branch and falling, flowering
 Even as other flowers fall and rise
 Upon the battlefield of life and death

 Where we are each besieged and sacked
 While in rebellious overthrow against
 The capital decree of flesh and blood

 Abandoned here by all but history
 And justice and the cause within ourselves
 We fight to see the day we fight no more

 The war for which the human race was made

Copyright ages and ages ago by Matthew J Wells