We planted our seed near the great Northern Sea
sending roots deep below in a land that was free
We took strength from the oak, we stood tall with the pine
we gave birth and met death within nature’ s design
When the Sword cut us down and the Knight took our land
we returned to the soil where we made our last stand
The sands will uncover
and time will reveal
who was meant to prevail
between amber and steel
They built towers and steeples where great pines once stood
as the Barons and and Czars filled our rivers with blood
They cut down the Oak to build gallows and altars
but as forests retreated the faith never faltered
As the century turned we were caught in the fires;
like a phoenix we rose from the ravaged empires
The sands will uncover
and time will reveal
who was meant to prevail
between amber and steel
We reached to the stars, we blossomed and flowered
until tanks and sad cattle cars wrought their dark power
The Red and the Brown joined their hands in the crime
we went down but survived cruelly frozen in time
We were closed from the world by a barbed iron curtain
but the sun was our hope and of this we were certain
In the forest and seashore we returned to our roots
deep beneath the iron heels of the enemy’s boots
The sands will uncover
and time will reveal
who was meant to prevail
between amber and steel
As the castles and commissars crumble and fall
the iron and the steel turn to rust
The oak and the pine reach to freedom again
and the amber glows gold in the dust
We rise from the seashore we emerge from the mud
from the Gulag to the Gauja we return
we were once,
we are still
we will always prevail
in the struggle of amber and steel
1991