Changing Of The Guards, re-trans

Re-translation from the German version of the Bob Dylan song by Peter Post
German Version
Original Version

Changing Of The Guards

Sixteen years
Sixteen banners united over the field
Where the good shepherd grieves
Desperate men, desperate women divided
Spreading their wings ’neath the falling leaves

Fortune calls me
I stepped forth from the shadow, to the marketplace
Merchants and thieves, hungry for power, my last deal
She’s smelling sweet like the meadows where she was born
Near the tower in a summer’s night.

The cold moon
The captain looks at the celebration
Sending his heart to a beloved maid
Whose beautiful face is beyond all understanding
The captain is down but still believing that his love will be repaid

They shaved her head
Torn between Jupiter and Apollo
A messenger arrived with a black nightingale
I’ve seen her in the corridor and I couldn’t help but going after her
Until the fountain where they lifted her veil

I came up again
Out of the debris, crawled out
To the roadside, the wound healed beneath the tattooed heart
Renegade priests and treacherous witches
Who were handing out the flowers that I’d gathered for you in March

In the palace of mirrors
Dog soldiers are reflected
The endless road and the crying of the chimes
The empty house that protects her memories,
Where the angels’ voices whisper to the souls of previous times

She wakes him up
Two days later, the sun is breaking through
Near broken chains, mountain laurel and rolling rocks
She’s begging him, wants to know what he now is intending
He’s pulling her down and she’s clutching to his long blond hair

He said, Gentlemen,
I don’t need your organization, I’ve shined your shoes
I’ve moved your mountains and marked your cards but Eden is burning.
Either brace yourself for the end or find in your hearts the courage
for the changing of the guards

Peace will come
Calmly and with splendor on the wheels of fire
But does not reward us when her idols fall
And death surrenders and its pale ghost retreats
To the king and the queen of war