The Queen And The Soldier (Live)

The soldier came knocking upon the queen's door He said, "I am not fighting for you any more" The queen knew she'd seen his face someplace before And slowly she let him inside. He said, "I've watched your palace up here on the hill And I've wondered who's the woman for whom we all kill But I am leaving tomorrow and you can do what you will Only first I am asking you why." Down in the long narrow hall he was led And she never once took the crown from her head Into her rooms with her tapestries red She asked him there to sit down. He said, "I see you now, and you are so very young And I've got this intuition, says it's all for your fun But I've seen more battles lost than I have battles won And now will you tell me why?" The young queen, she fixed him with an arrogant eye She said, "You won't understand, and you may as well not try" But she closed herself up like a fan. It cuts me inside, and often I've bled" But her face was a child's, and he thought she would cry And she said, "I've swallowed a secret burning thread He laid his hand then on top of her head "Tell me how hungry are you? How weak you must feel And he bowed her down to the ground. As you are living here alone, and you are never revealed But I won't march again on your battlefield" And he took her to the window to see. And the sun, it was gold, though the sky, it was gray But she knew how it frightened her, and she turned away And she wanted more than she ever could say And he said, "I want to live as an honest man And would not look at his face again. To get all I deserve and to give all I can Your highness, your ways are very strange." And to love a young woman who I don't understand But the crown, it had fallen, and she thought she would break And she stood there, ashamed of the way her heart ached She took him to the doorstep and she asked him to wait She would only be a moment inside. Out in the distance her order was heard And while the queen went on strangeling in the solitude she preferred And the soldier was killed, still waiting for her word The battle continued on