This here is the tale
of a daughter's tears
that fell over and over, over the years.
See, this girl had a father
out on the plains
in a rickety shack that leaks when it rains,
and this father tilled fields
and this father baked bread
and this father is loved, even now that he's dead.
His daughter knew not
why her father was killed
and strung up like a scare-crow in the fields he had tilled,
but she saw it all happen
as she stood by, ignored,
and the men from the city killed the man she adored.
And he stared in her eyes
as they cut out his guts
and blood filled the lines of the wagon-wheel ruts;
but he never cried out,
never once looked away,
even after he baked in the heat of the day
and his skin turned to dust and blew softly away
and there were only his bones left to bleach and decay,
no, he never cried out, and never once looked away,
and she feels his eyes on her, even up to this day.
Now, this girl's filled with hate
even now that she's grown
and she's vowed that those men should all reap what they've sown...
but it's not for the death
of the great man she lost;
some men make mistakes, and their lives are the cost.
See, this daughter knows not,
nor been ever concerned,
with her father's mistake, how his death had been earned,
for death comes to us all,
and her father died well,
and he raised up his daughter...at least for a spell.
No, it wasn't the death;
that she could have borne.
It was the men from the city, and their eyes full of scorn.
"How poor this man is!"
They had laughed as he bled.
"That shack's got no pillow for the chap's greasey head!
There's no leather reins
for his flea-bitten horse,
he makes due with a rope, and one dirty and coarse!
Look here, what a face!
It's all bristly and scarred,
and features grotesque, a grim face and marred!
No coin for a barber?
No coin for a bath?
What fool married you? She must have been daft!
What simpleton woman
would live as the wife
of a man so despondent that he shaves with a knife?
What farmer has fortunes
so rotten and low
that he grinds his own meal from the crops that he grows?
No coin for a miller?
A baker? A hand?
You're too poor to live! And so now are you damned!"
They laughed at her father,
they spit on his face,
yet they were the ones who were out of their place.
Now the girl has grown up,
the girl has grown tough,
they've gone too long unpunished, and enough is enough.
So one at the time
she tracked them all down
snuck up with a stone, brought each man to the ground,
and she strung each one up
like scare-crows in fields,
woke them up with the rusty old knife that she wields;
she addressed them each calmly
on behalf of the dead
and before taking payment, to each one she said:
"This here is the stone
that ground up the grain
of the noblest man to sleep in the rain.
And this is the rope
that calloused the hands
that held on to a daughter before she could stand.
And this is the knife
that shaved off the beard
of a man who faltered, but never feared.
You fools have no courage,
you cringe at death's sting!
You've forgotten my father,
but remember one thing:
that he lived like a poor man,
but he died like a king.
So now this is the vengeance
for a daughter's tears
that fell over and over, over the years."
of a daughter's tears
that fell over and over, over the years.
See, this girl had a father
out on the plains
in a rickety shack that leaks when it rains,
and this father tilled fields
and this father baked bread
and this father is loved, even now that he's dead.
His daughter knew not
why her father was killed
and strung up like a scare-crow in the fields he had tilled,
but she saw it all happen
as she stood by, ignored,
and the men from the city killed the man she adored.
And he stared in her eyes
as they cut out his guts
and blood filled the lines of the wagon-wheel ruts;
but he never cried out,
never once looked away,
even after he baked in the heat of the day
and his skin turned to dust and blew softly away
and there were only his bones left to bleach and decay,
no, he never cried out, and never once looked away,
and she feels his eyes on her, even up to this day.
Now, this girl's filled with hate
even now that she's grown
and she's vowed that those men should all reap what they've sown...
but it's not for the death
of the great man she lost;
some men make mistakes, and their lives are the cost.
See, this daughter knows not,
nor been ever concerned,
with her father's mistake, how his death had been earned,
for death comes to us all,
and her father died well,
and he raised up his daughter...at least for a spell.
No, it wasn't the death;
that she could have borne.
It was the men from the city, and their eyes full of scorn.
"How poor this man is!"
They had laughed as he bled.
"That shack's got no pillow for the chap's greasey head!
There's no leather reins
for his flea-bitten horse,
he makes due with a rope, and one dirty and coarse!
Look here, what a face!
It's all bristly and scarred,
and features grotesque, a grim face and marred!
No coin for a barber?
No coin for a bath?
What fool married you? She must have been daft!
What simpleton woman
would live as the wife
of a man so despondent that he shaves with a knife?
What farmer has fortunes
so rotten and low
that he grinds his own meal from the crops that he grows?
No coin for a miller?
A baker? A hand?
You're too poor to live! And so now are you damned!"
They laughed at her father,
they spit on his face,
yet they were the ones who were out of their place.
Now the girl has grown up,
the girl has grown tough,
they've gone too long unpunished, and enough is enough.
So one at the time
she tracked them all down
snuck up with a stone, brought each man to the ground,
and she strung each one up
like scare-crows in fields,
woke them up with the rusty old knife that she wields;
she addressed them each calmly
on behalf of the dead
and before taking payment, to each one she said:
"This here is the stone
that ground up the grain
of the noblest man to sleep in the rain.
And this is the rope
that calloused the hands
that held on to a daughter before she could stand.
And this is the knife
that shaved off the beard
of a man who faltered, but never feared.
You fools have no courage,
you cringe at death's sting!
You've forgotten my father,
but remember one thing:
that he lived like a poor man,
but he died like a king.
So now this is the vengeance
for a daughter's tears
that fell over and over, over the years."
gabe is currently a 2nd year student at VCOM.
