Not With Deserters Lyrics - The Trackless Woods - Iris Dement

Not with deserters from the battle 

That tears my land do I belong. 

To their coarse praise I do not listen, 

They shall not have from me one song. 

Poor exile, you are like a prisoner to me 

Or one upon a bed of sickness 

Dark your road, O wanderer 

Of wormwood smacks your alien bread 

Here into smoke and fires that blacken, 

Our lives, the last of youth, we throw 

Who, in the years behind us, never 

Sought to evade a single blow. 

Poor exile, you are like a prisoner to me 

Or one upon a bed of sickness 

Dark your road, O wanderer 

Of wormwood smacks your alien bread 

We know that in the final reckoning 

No hour will need apology 

No people in the world are prouder 

More tearless, simpler, than are we 

Poor exile, you are like a prisoner to me 

Or one upon a bed of sickness 

Dark your road, O wanderer 

Of wormwood smacks your alien bread