A King and a Queen Songtext

von Okkervil River

If you want to see and be seen, then be seen.
Your dress is dark red and your opening eyes are bright green.
Make a scene, but don't lie on the bed, laid out like you're dead, because honey, you're murdering me.
Be a little sheep learning who'll shear and who'll feed.
The hands come and they leave. Be hands holding a knife.
Be a being on two feet, with his heart trembling, butchering for a king he believes in though he's never seen.
Be the princess in that stone tower, crying for that handsome butcher's plight
(and, as some princess might, she still calls him a knight.)
But the best thing for you would be queen, so be queen.
You're all that I need. Though I know that it never can be, I'd be pleased to post your decrees,
To fall at your knees, to name all your streets and to sit down and weep when you're carried back through them
And set down to sleep, and to lie by your side for sublime centuries
(until we crumble to dust when we're crushed by a single sunbeam.)