The Green Will Not Yield

(Verse 1) The sky is iron, the fields are black with spears, They outnumber the leaves that fall in a hundred years. Yet here we stand where the barley once grew tall, One more harvest of iron before the winter takes all. (Chorus) The Green will not yield, though the night comes on, Root and blade, we are living dawn! Sing for the furrows, sing for the loam, The earth remembers the way we go home. (Verse 2) We have no banner but the oak overhead, No war-cry but the wind through the hazel and yew. They promised us graves, we promised them thorns, And the forest is patient; it outlives us all. (Chorus) The Green will not yield, though the night comes on, Root and blade, we are living dawn! Sing for the furrows, sing for the loam, The earth remembers the way we go home. (Verse 3) Let the horns of their triumph bray loud while they may, We answer with blackbird, with wren, and with jay. Every step that we plant is a seed in the ground, And the green keeps its counsel long after the sound. (Chorus) The Green will not yield, though the night comes on, Root and blade, we are living dawn! Sing for the furrows, sing for the loam, The earth remembers the way we go home. (Verse 4) If morning finds ravens where brothers once stood, Let the wheat eat out flesh and the briar our blood. We fall as we lived, with the sun on our face, And the God of green places will know his own grace. (Chorus (slower, deeper)) The Green will not yield, though the night comes on, Root and blade, we are living dawn! Sing for the furrows, sing for the loam, The earth remembers the way we go home. (Final Chorus (shouted as the line charges)) The Green will not yield, though the night comes on! Root and blade, we are living dawn! When the last voice falters and the last light is gone, Still the green will be rising long after the song.