Thrice – Beggars

All you great men of power, you who boast of your feats

Politicians and entrepreneurs

Can you safe guard your breath in the night while you sleep

Keep your heart beating steady and sure

As you lie in your bed

Does the thought haunt your head

That you’re really rather small?

If there’s one thing I know in this life

We are beggars all

All you champions of science and rulers of men

Can you summon the sun from it’s sleep?

Does the earth seek your council on how fast to spin?

Can you shut up the gates of the deep?

Don’t you know that all things

Hang as if on a string over darkness

Poised to fall?

If there’s one thing I know in this life

We are beggars all

All you big shots who swagger, stride with conceit

Did you devise how your frame would be formed?

If you’d be raised in a palace or left out on the streets

Choose the place or the hour you’d be born

Tell me what can you claim

Not a thing, not your name

Tell me if you can recall just one thing

Not a gift in this life

Can you hear what’s been said?

Can you see now that

Everything’s grace after all?

If there’s one thing I know in this life

We are beggars all