Spanish Stairs – Jack Casey

Don’t be downhearted with the news from home
Take my hand, walk with me, you won’t feel so alone
We’ll climb up at sunset, and you’ll forget all your cares
Looking out over Rome from the Spanish stairs

This has all occurred before, just open up your eyes.
Like a day in the coliseum when beneath the brutal skies
They screamed for the blood of Christians and gladiators out in the glare
There’ll be murder for our amusement as we watch from the Spanish stairs

The emperors send their legions to conquer far off to distant lands
And enslave the savage peoples in forests and across the desert sands
See the generals march through their triumphal arch
With their loot and treasure, leading slave girls by the hand

The popes raised up their armies to save the Holy Land
They say it’s for religion so that we’ll understand
But it’s only wealth and power when the truth is laid bare
They don’t listen to the wailing in the darkness below the Spanish stairs

And here rides bold Napoleon on his entry into Rome
The greed and lust of empire beneath St. Peter’s dome
And Mussolini’s fascists goose-stepping through the square
Listen and you’ll hear them echo up the Spanish stairs

There’s treachery and betrayal, senators are spilling Caesar’s blood
And the bread and circus rabble cheering chariots in the mud
As if somebody cared, you and I have been spared
To witness the destruction like Noah at the rising of the flood

Back home it’s raining brimstone, the towers now are dust
You say your friends were slaughtered, it’s not right, it’s not just
Now the flags are waving and squadrons of bombers fill the air
As another red sun sets over Rome and the Spanish stairs

So let the darkness soothe you in the labyrinth below
We’re strangers in a strange land no matter where we go
And there’s never any refuge in our sorrow or our prayers
Hear the groaning of the ages rising up the Spanish stairs