///*****/// [Intro] No map admits the road through an abandoned hill city where shadows point east at sunset, Yet boot and heartbeat mark a stubborn time. The dark has learned the language of command, But not the word that makes a free soul kneel. [Verse 1] The gate is barred with promises and rifles, The herald reads surrender from a scroll. I see the ink run black beneath his fingers, But no decree can requisition soul. We wore our losses underneath our armor, We learned to breathe where hope was rationed thin. Now every footstep magnifies the answer: The walls are strong, but stronger hearts begin. [Pre-Chorus] Let the warning drums awaken, Let the hidden doors unseal. What was whispered now is spoken, What was wounded now is steel. [Chorus] Ring the bell at world’s end! Let the hammering heavens hear our cry. Ring the bell at world’s end! We were born to stand, not wait to die. Through the smoke, through the wound, through the night that calls us liars, We will carry living iron, we will carry living fires. Ring the bell at world’s end! Raise the truth until it cuts across the sky. [Verse 2] They promised peace, but sent us a devouring silence spreading from a sealed clock tower. They dressed the oldest hunger up as law. I watched the faithful trade away their names, I watched the proud salute the thing they saw. Then in the ruin I uncovered a cracked bell engraved with forgotten seasons; No jeweled relic, only proof made bright. It held the warmth of everyone who fell, And showed my empty hands what they must fight. [Chorus] Ring the bell at world’s end! We were born to stand, not wait to die. Through the smoke and through the wound, carry the living fire. Ring the bell at world’s end! Raise the truth across the sky. [Bridge] If I return alone, remember this: I will climb before the final echo disappears. No monument can breathe for those it buries, No sacred word can make a falsehood clean. The future is not granted by the mighty; It starts wherever ordinary hearts convene. [Guitar Solo - an exploratory guitar solo with unusual intervallic motifs, brief clean arpeggios and a tolling low-A resolution] [Rhythm guitars hold the central motif while bass and drums widen the battlefield.] [Verse 3] This is the tale of a knight hearing a bell that announces the death of time. The weak became a wall around each other, The lost became a road across the rain. We learned that hope is neither soft nor silent, It bites the hand that feeds the world despair. It lifts the fallen standard from the gutter, And makes a kingdom out of those who care. [Final Chorus] Ring the bell at world’s end! Let the last horizon answer to our cry. Ring the bell at world’s end! We have learned the dark can bleed and empires die. Through the smoke, through the wound, through the years that tried to break us, We are neither owned nor ended; every scar will remake us. Ring the bell at world’s end! Raise the truth until it cuts across the sky.
