John Jacob Niles, I am haunted by romance   Things in the valley, of things yet to be   Please come back to life and use your vibrato   To sound out a path the blind can use to return      For now the way's blocked by an inferno   Everything's on fire and I don't think it rains   I use my hands to contemplate it   I'm hiding my face except for my eyes      Everyone in the fire pretends they're not burning   They just keep digging holes and collecting their pay   Sometimes before a figure collapses   As they begin to smoke they point at the sky      My father is one of the engineers   I don't know which one, but my mother should   He helped build a lake in Oklahoma   When a thousand boats sank there they set them both on fire      Another old man no relation to me   Climbed up on a roof to look at the moon   The subtlety of her form was terrible to him   He threw himself off the roof, though it was only two floors      I'm only three miles from the place I was brought up   I'm only six feet from the spot where I'll die   People around me are blistered and hidden   There's blood on the ground but I don't think it's mine      My eyes cannot focus for the strain I put on them   There's a litter of smoke like dogs in the sky   A cannon's established overlooking the valley   Pointing at the moon though I am not sure why      The king is not dead, he is just made immortal   So is his crown he continues to lead   The king made immortal has human eyes   He took from his daughter so he'd continue to see      By sheer force of will I will be there tomorrow   I won't go anywhere there's no reason to stay   The moon's yellow light is neither subtle nor brutal   But a patient reflection of the inferno to come      The sun is the same as his daughter the moon   Neither admits it but both are ashamed   I'm as far from the one as I can be without freezing   I'm as close to the other as is possible now      The land in the winter is festooned with rockets   They won't leave for me though I'm sure I am next   They are not a judgment though I'm sure I am righteous   Their corduroy shoulders and the scepters of same   Slouching toward something in the direction we came      King's eyes renew like his other children   His daughter without eyes sits here next to me   The king is not dead, he is just made immortal   And so is his crown he continues to lead