Stones of Jerusalem

Sultan Suleiman re-stacked the walls again
 Malik-al-Muattam had destroyed
 Before him was Saladin who captured Jerusalem
 From the crusaders who won it in war
 But before the crusaders, the stones had been made into
 Mosques that were made from old stones
 Those stones were Queen Helena's picked up from Hadrian
 Long after Herod was gone
 This building before you is not what I am
 This building is something I do
 I stand like a wave in a fast moving river
 I stand for the story that's moving through
 Building is a verb, even more than a noun
 Stacking us up, tearing us down
 Cut from the quarry's in sacred ground
 We are the stones of this town
 King David and Solomon give way to Babylon
 That falls to the Persians till the Greeks take control
 Then come the Maccabees who rule in Jerusalem
 Till general Pompey takes it for Rome
 Herod and Pilate, and Titus and Hadrian
 Helena, Constantine, Persians and Byzantines
 Muslims, crusaders, Kurds under Saladin
 Then Mamluk sultans from Egypt come
 They rule here for centurys up to the Ottomans
 Whose empire remains until world war one
 This building before you is not what I am
 This building is something I do
 I stand like a wave in a fast moving river
 I stand for the story that's moving through
 Building is a verb, even more than a noun
 Stacking us up, tearing us down
 Cut from the quarry's in sacred ground
 We are the stones of this town