Watch and Learn, Richard

(Industrial folk / marching shanty)

Gather ‘round you Yankee lads, stop your gawkin’ at the sky

Those great iron whales above don’t float by chance or lie

England learned her lessons hard from dragon flame and war

Now we forge the storm itself in every flying corps

You’ve hauled coal and shoveled steam, but this is somethin’ more

This is how we broke the fear that ruled us years before

Mind your ears and mind your hands, don’t daydream like a dunce

A single fool with Aether can blow us all at once

Watch and learn now, Richard boy, remember what I say

Steam and crystal built the wings that keep the beasts at bay

Aether fills the lifting cells and lifts us through the storm

Evercoal feeds furnace hearts red blazing bright and warm

Eversteel plates the hulls that dragons cannot break

England’s sky was bought in blood for every mile we take

So mark these words and mark them well, for war may call someday

And you may be the man who keeps the dragons far away

Deep beneath the clay beds where the black earth sweats with fire

Miners dig the crystal seams the foundries all require

Rose-bright in the lantern glow and humming soft at night

Like trapped stars from Heaven bound in stone and buried light

Crush it fine and feed the flames with coal from northern veins

The crystal clay transforms it all and changes what remains

Evercoal the stokers call it, hotter far than hell

Burns near twice as long as common coal and twice as fierce as well

Steam alone won’t lift a ship no matter how you pray

Pass it through the Aether cores and watch the vapor change

The lifting cells swell bright as dawn against the iron frames

With gas ten times lighter than hydrogen contained

That’s why our dreadnoughts ride the clouds while broodlings crawl below

Why Blitzkrieg keeps his distance when the battle sirens blow

For dragons rule the earth and sea where frightened nations kneel

But England rules the storm itself with fire and Eversteel

Mind the pressure gauges

Mind the crystal shine

If the valves begin to chatter

Run like hell below

I’ve seen proud ships vanish

In white and screaming flame

When green boys mocked the furnace rites

Or played the fool with steam

Watch and learn now, Richard boy, remember what I say

Steam and crystal built the wings that keep the beasts at bay

Aether fills the lifting cells, lifts us through the storm

Evercoal feeds furnace hearts red blazing bright and warm

Eversteel plates the hulls that dragons cannot break

England’s sky was bought in blood for every mile we take

And should the black day ever come your homeland skies ignite

You’ll know the secrets England forged to make the dragons fight

So shovel coal and tend the steam

And listen close, my son

For kingdoms live or kingdoms die

By what their smiths become…