[Verse 1]
Smoke drags low across the field, the fighting almost done,
Macbeth won't fall on his own blade, won't die by his own gun —
no Roman exit, no quiet quitting, he's still gripping a vow,
some whispered promise from the heath that won't let him bow.
Macduff comes stalking through the haze, a debt he means to collect,
calls him hell-hound, butcher's son, a name he won't protect.
Macbeth stands wrapped in borrowed armor, stitched from a witch's lie,
certain no sword drawn by hand can make this soldier die.
[Chorus]
He swears no blade can touch this skin,
no man of woman born can enter in,
charmed life, he calls it, intrenchant like stone —
that's the old word meaning "cannot be cut," flesh turned to bone.
[Verse 2]
Macduff stops smiling, steps in close, and lets the quiet drop:
the charm he's bragging on is hollow, tell him now to stop.
Macduff was from his mother's womb
Untimely ripp'd — pulled early, no cradle, no room,
no gentle door of birth he passed through, caesarean and strange,
cut out before his time — and that's the loophole, the exchange.
[Verse 3]
Macbeth's tongue falters, the ground he's standing on gives way,
cursing those three weird sisters that led his mind astray —
to palter means to cheat with words, to promise and deceive,
keep the letter, break the meaning, make a man believe.
He nearly folds, won't raise his arm, calls the fight too cruel,
then something harder answers back, refusing to be fooled:
lay on, Macduff;
and damn'd be him that first cries, Hold, enough!
[Chorus]
He swears no blade can touch this skin,
no man of woman born can enter in,
charmed life, he calls it, intrenchant like stone —
that's the old word meaning "cannot be cut," flesh turned to bone.
[Bridge]
Siward hears his son fell fighting, wounds all on his front,
a soldier's death, worth grieving loud, no coward's hollow hunt.
Macduff walks back across the field, a burden in his hand,
and hails young Malcolm, newly king, ruler of this land.
Malcolm lifts his thanes to earls — a rank raised up in reward,
old titles traded for the new, the kingdom's books restored.
Lady Macbeth, by her own hand, has left this bitter scene,
he calls them this dead butcher, and his fiend-like queen.
[Verse 4]
The prophecy was never kind, just careful how it spoke,
a riddle wrapped in armor that was always built to choke.
Birnam Wood walked up the hill, the trees became the sign,
the forest marched where no one thought a forest's roots would climb.
So mark the lesson left behind when certainty runs blind:
the words that promise safety can be weapons of their kind.
Ambition dressed as prophecy will burn you where you stand —
a crown built on a riddle crumbles fast to shifting sand.
[Outro]
Crowning waits at Scone, the circle finally sealed,
the cry that opened up the play now closes out the field —
Hail, King of Scotland! — order finds its home again,
sung low and slow, the final note, the end of all that pain.