Tanlin bridge

There is a boy on Tanlin Bridge, his aging father is behind,
See the boy is free of guilt, but shadows haunt the old man's mind.
They stop, and watch the other side, where the grass is sere and burned,
He says, "Behold the east, and heed a sorry lesson learned."

A pious monk once dwelled within, the tower on the western shore.
He watched a feud 'twixt east and west, with interest and something more.
The Tanlin Bridge was built before, these lands held folk within their vales,
built of trees of eastern wood, and paved with western slate and shale.

Who split the paving slate and shale, and hewed the beams of oaken trunk,
Twas never known by west or east, though some said it was the monk.

He cries, "So help me God!"
He runs as far as the night is from the day,
Your past follows just like a shade,
You can never break away...

Ashes to ashes, we all fall down,
The old man has set us aflame...

Soon the men came into the vale, and gates were built upon each ridge,
Locking the east out from the west - and blocking the way across the Tanlin Bridge.
And when the lords from either side, watched their children fight and die,
a change occurred within their hearts, and they began to wonder - why?

He cries, "So help me God!"
He runs with oil and raging flame,
His hatred is a gleaming blade,
Purging them all in God's good name...