The law was out there hunting;
I was hunting for her too.
A bandit and a citizen,
with a hollow point or two.

She stood beneath the red veil,
the Republic’s dying breath,
And I waited in the shadows
for the music of her death.

I’ve resigned from the assembly;
I have turned in my degree.
There is nothing in the human race
that still belongs to me.

Why build a social system?
Why break a woman’s heart,
When every grand philosophy
is falling right apart?

The orders came down heavy,
but my hand was light and still.
It doesn’t take a man of soul
to work a steady will.

I sent the leaden prayer home
through her anthem and her lace,
And I watched the red stain blooming
on the asphalt of the place.

I renounce the moral struggle;
I renounce the aesthetic flame.
I’m a ghost within the ruins
who has forgotten his own name.

The sky is just a vacant vault,
the sun is common stone,
And I’m walking from the wreckage—
perfectly, and finally, alone.