I will sing an Ave Maria,
if it ever comes again.

These shackles are jewel speckled,
donned from generation to the next.

We passed them on,
though they were painful,
under the eye of an aging world,
we guarded them with our lives
and what was left of our sanity.

Like sheep we are led to the slaughter
of reason,
and the judges;
book cases from Plato to Kant,
look down on us;

yet still we proudly walk on,
proud of our parent's yoke:

For from this burden was borne their love,
and it lives unsullied,
while all the world crumbles
at the feet of the wise.

And it is for that love,
that we carry this yoke also,
though it crushes our will and shoulders:

Remember, the rose will not desert the thorn.

So I will sing an Ave Maria,
even when the veil is torn
and the virgin is no more.

I will aspire to that purity,
should all Heaven frown,
and Hell lust with greed.

I will sing till the rising sun
and livid moon are no more,
till all the world now rests in a twilight,
under the watchful eye of the Gazer,

And when that last lingering hope is lost
to the symmetrical shades of new thought,

I will sing
of that rose which will not desert its thorn,
and in my song, new hope may yet be born.