i love the world lyrics

The roll of distant thunder breaks
The afternoon of silence wakes
They hurry through from Petergate
As if they know this dance

In fury blind, I drive at night across the moors
The open roads beneath the freezing starry skies
Racing in some trance

These cities are illusions
Of some triumph over Nature's laws
We've seen the iron carcass rust
And buildings topple into dust

And as the waters rise
It seems we cling to all the rootless things
The Christian lies, technology
While spirits scream and sing

Oh God, I love the world
Well, I never said I was a clever man
But I know enough to understand

That the endless leaps and forward plans
Will someday have to cease
You blind yourselves with comfort lies
Like lightning never strikes you twice

And we laugh at your amazed surprise
As the Ark begins to sink
This temple that is built so well
To separate us from ourselves

Is a power grown beyond control
A will without a face
And watching from outside I wish
That I could wash my hands of this
But we are locked together here
This bittersweet embrace

Oh God, I love the world
And if one day the final fire explodes
Across the whitened sky
I know you've said you'd rather die
And make it over fast

With courage from your bravest friends
Waiting outside for the end
With no bitterness but an innocence
That I can't seem to grasp

I know somehow I will survive
This fury just to stay alive
So drunk with sickness, weak with pain
I can walk the hills one last time

Scarred and smiling, dying slow
I'll scream to no one left at all
I told you so, I told you so, I told you so
Oh God, I love the world