Arrow by Van der Graaf Generator Lyrics

[Instrumental Intro]

[Verse 1]
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

[Refrain 1]
Hood masks the eager face, skin stretched and sallow
Headlong into the chilling night, as swift as any Arrow

[Verse 2]
Feet against the flagstones
Fingers scrabbling at the lock
Craving protection
"Sanctuary!", croaks 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
[Refrain 2]
What a crawl against the slope - dark loom the gallows
One touch to the chapel door, how swiftly comes the Arrow

[Break]

[Verse 3]
"Compassion", you plead
As though they kept it in a box, hah! -
Well, that's long since been empty
I'd like to help you somehow
But I'm in the self-same spot:
Oh, my condition exempts me
We are all on the run, on our knees;
The sundial draws a line upon eternity
Across every number

[Refrain 3]
How long the time seems, how dark the shadow
Oh, how straight the eagle flies, how straight towards his Arrow
How long the night is - why is this passage so narrow?
How strange my body feels, impaled upon the Arrow

[Instrumental]