Waltz of the 101st Lightborne Joanna Newsom

I believed they had got what they came for;
I believed our peril was done
On the eve of the last of the Great Wars
After three we had narrowly won
(But the fourth
It was carelessly done.)

I saw his ship in its whistling ascension
As they launched from the Capitol seat–
Swear I saw our mistake
When the clouds draped like a flag
Across the backs of the fleet
Of the Hundred-First Lightborne Elite

As the day is long
So the well runs dry
And we came to see Time is taller
Than Space is wide
And we bade goodbye
To the Great Divide:
Found unlimited simulacreage to colonize!

But there was a time we were lashed to the prow
Of a ship you may board, but not steer
Before You and I ceased to mean Now
And began to mean only Right Here
(to mean Inches and Miles, but not Years);
Before Space has a taste of its limits
And a new sort of coordinate awoke
Making Time just another poor tenant:
Bearing weight, taking fire, trading smokes
In the war between us and our ghosts