My love, she waits
Outside the liar's gates
And the dead-eyed boys inside
Hear the dead-eyes girls decide

That there ain't no use in living
When every diamond has been given
Sing a requiem for a kingdom

My love, she laughs
As the days go roaring past
With her heart full of rain
She dances upon the flames

And in the year of the gun
Should you find yourself under a foreign sun
Cry a requiem for a kingdom

My love swims the river
With a knife between her teeth
And a million crows hide the sun
From the suicides beneath

And oh, what a crime
To be dying all of the time
To a requiem for a kingdom

And it must the blade
The circus and the parade
That steals your breath
And loves this land to death

And I don't want your freedom
When the saints are all drunk, can't you hear them
Howl a requiem for a kingdom