Blacktop pavement cover me
Like a chemical reaction or a steam roller
Spreading randomly
There's a distant buzz and low frequency
It tickles my ear, rumbles under my feet
And it shakes the leaves off of every tree, violently

What pretension, everlasting peace
Everything must cease

Institution on the Hill
Like a beacon in the mind of an ancestor
To ignite a people's will
There's a shadowed stain on the west facade
It has spread like decay to enshroud the fraud
And the descendants find it oh so odd, oh so odd

What pretension, everlasting peace
Everything must cease

Grave memorial, hewn white stone
Like the comforting caress of a mother
Or a friend you've always known
It evokes such pain and significance
What was once is reduced to remembrance
And the generations pass without recompense

What pretension, everlasting peace
Everything must cease