Out from the dawn
Rides the mounted hellspawn
In numbers unfathomed
To blot out the sun
Temujin’s progeny
Ascended to the saddle
To pillage and extort the weak
To subjugate them all

In the cradle
Of civilization
The world’s knowledge centered
For dissemination
Reality contorted
By violence and destruction
Each city burns
In rapid succession

“Hold the gates
Don’t let them break through”
Final pleas
Of a crumbling caliphate
City under siege
They stand their ground in vain
And human innovation
Is gripped by the throat

Maternal river
Flowing black and red
Blood and ink
Coalesce in amnesia
This heart
Of scholarship
So cruelly
Abrogated
Is the final gasp
Of a golden age

Converging their armies
On the city of peace
Baring their teeth
With a taste for violence
Destruction unsurpassed
For eight hundred years
Commenced at the wave
Of Hulagu’s hand
Hundreds of thousands
Condemned to atrocity
Paying in their lives
For royal decadence
A tragic stage of history
Deprivation of learning
Lost in the West
Yet the echo remains

Murderous and verminous
With fleeting dreams of permanence
Taking advantage of
Complacent gluttony

Maternal river
Flowing black and red
Blood and ink
Coalesce in amnesia
This heart
Of scholarship
So cruelly
Abrogated
Is the final gasp
Of a golden age

Sadistically inflicted
Was this calculated punishment
Seven days of pillage
In response to their defiance
Impotent leadership
Punished for its failure
Trampled upon a carpet
“Such was God’s will”

Baghdad burns
It burns
Baghdad burns
It burns

Converging their armies
On the city of peace
Baring their teeth
With a taste for violence
Destruction unsurpassed
For eight hundred years
Commenced at the wave
Of Hulagu’s hand
Hundreds of thousands
Condemned to atrocity
Paying in their lives
For royal decadence
A tragic stage of history
Deprivation of learning
Lost in the West
Yet the echo remains

Murderous and verminous
With fleeting dreams of permanence
Taking advantage of
Complacent gluttony
The ineffectual Caliph
Who failed to defend a culture
Starved in the very treasures
He betrayed prerogative for

Maternal river
Flowing black and red
Blood and ink
Coalesce in amnesia
This heart
Of scholarship
So cruelly
Abrogated
Is the final gasp
Of a golden age
Maternal river
Flowing black and red
Blood and ink
Coalesce in amnesia
This heart
Of scholarship
So cruelly
Abrogated
Is the final gasp
Of a golden age
“Hold the gates
Don’t let them break through”
Final pleas
Of a crumbling caliphate
City under siege
They stand their ground in vain
And human innovation
Is gripped by the throat