Breathes there a man with a soul so dead His faith is not shaken nor stirred Breathes there a man with a soul so dead His faith is not shaken nor stirred By the black swamp-blood that beats within these words? Deep within the mighty bog oaks Burke Holder never spoke A word in prayer ere he harvested his trees As the bleeding sap soaked the fallen leaves Doubling back before his deed was done He left scars in the bark like rings He'd hacked their knotty hides to smithereens He turned to face the sun But their shadows overcome Like the broken fingers of an up-jumped, beaten slave Growing tighter till his heartlight choked away
Keeping God up all night, begging for mercy No mercy was all he found Strange angels sang while curtains fell around “Simple Stewardship you've failed Blast the lumberhorns of Hell While buzzards bray their rackety refrain This man has made no mark, he's left a stain.” O come all ye hunters who follow the gun Beware of your wasteful ways! Or soon you'll be lyin' in the clay of the earth you hate For those who enter his haunted woods Lose their way, it's understood; Emerging in the morning to a new dawn's early light But a whole, damn live-long year has pa**ed them by Timber! Dark Timber...in the wilds of the Deadening