Arrow - Van Der Graaf Generator

Stub towers in the distance, riders cross the blasted moor

against the horizon

Fickle promises of treaty, fatal harbingers of war,

futile orisons

Swirl as one in this flight, this mad chase,

This surge across the marshy mud landscape

until the meaning is forgotten.

Hood masks the eager face, skin stretched and sallow,

Headlong into the chilling night, as swift as any arrow.

Feet against the flagstones, fingers scrabbling at the lock,

craving protection,

'Sanctuary!'

cracks a voice, half-strangled by the shock

of its rejection.

Shot the bolt in the wall, rusted the key;

Now the echoes of all frightful memory

intrude in the silence.

What a crawl against the slope — dark loom the gallows