Undermighty King

They quip and say and know my name

as if I care at all.

They wish and pray and sow their seeds

as if I care at all.

They grow and live and breath and war

as I cared a thought for it all.

The tree is beauty, and that is God,

the grass is beauty and that is God,

the smoke is beauty and that is God.

My legacy may not be my father's,

for though we are linked so,

I have not his taste for blood nor wine nor steel nor women,

but don't get me wrong, please don't think, you know how I know:

the world is this: it ends soon, it ends after I leave,

I sit beneath the tree with men, fleeting, thinking I need

to have protection when the Lord is here, and if not, it'd not matter.

I've done my part, I built my schools, I gave my son, I let France rule,

they call me fool, and Margaret's tool, and cuckold all the same.

But they all forget the crucial thing,

and that is that; if it mattered, God would have put me there instead.

They quip and say and know my name

as if I care at all.

They wish and pray and sow their seeds

as if I care at all.

They grow and live and breath and war

as I cared a thought for it all.