Swelling pyres sway restlessly From bleak to pale adorn the weald Its wild reflection wondrous A danse macabre in glass
Glimpse of festive silhouettes Free of face, of name, of guilt Enthroned in thorns, abismal eyes Adorned with fiendish grin
What forbidden feast of sin Entangles silken nymphs with hordes? To steal a glance pernicious To heed diapason divine
The longing gaze toward drifting pairs Uncovered dreams of gold and silk Yet gold melts under gruelling blaze Unbidden sentinel unveiled
Quiescent summons of revelation From eyes angelic bidding forth With ghastly fear and awe amassed Becomes an unexpected guest
In silence takes his outstretched hand Leads her in the chosen dance A kind of minuet grotesque Kindling fire of the profaned
The revelers of dark observe The nymph in play with incubus The jealous rage of succubus Unfolds forbidden passion bold
The embers gasping for a breadth The last guest crawls to find his rest As music slowly dissipates The nymph shares one last toast distressed
But Time unkind does not release Majestic spirit from this hex His temptress fair of flesh and blood His Galatea etched in stone
In watchful eye he spies the night Dare not disturb her yearning rest Bestows her dreams by bedside realm Of dancing silhouettes and pyres
2. Homage - Magni Nominis Umbra
A gentle rustling assents to gusts of fury south and west Foretelling of the nearing guest of rapture and of doom forlorn
Behold the streams, the undesired Beneath the shadow of his wings Descending in his silent power Majestic being the tempest brings
The desert sands may bury deep Enigmas that were once to keep But true to legend past engraved Continueth the search for prey
Behold the streams, the undesired Beneath the shadow of his wings Descending in his silent power As guard, as executioner
As dew bites dust to bitter end And ivy breathes its deadly breath The roving minstrel, troubadour Intones his eastern song of yore
Behold the streams, the undesired Beneath the shadow of his wings Descending in his silent power A grinning child in wretchedness
An aria of howling pain An ode to torment and distress A grip that holds beyond demise An empty stillness in his eye
From whirling sands and heightened sun To heightened moon and gusts of wind As guard, as executioner Beneath the shadow of his wings
3. Vestige - Non Omnis Moriar
Barren hills of darkened earth Recollections young and old Butchered, scattered manifold Faded footprints in the snow
No demi-wolves with piercing eyes Appear with painted masks of war Now still and calm conquer these hills Where once the rivers flowed with blood
In the midst of the shimmering frost Where the tree of the sacred lie dead To defeat all the lies and the tears Hear the galloping ones ride through hell
How time forgets this sanguine creek The heaped, the scattered, butchered ones Their voices chanting narratives Their movements hail to ghostly pasts
For demi-wolves still roam the skies Coyotes, vultures at their side One thousand horses ebony Ethereal in phantom flight
As the chanting of Elders grows fierce And the menacing wolves circle prey To return to those glorious days Hear he galloping ones ride through hell
4. Lure - Pallida Mors
Gleaming droplets douse the mead bringing with its breeze the scent Of weeping willows Babylon bedding down for winter's chill
Like two young lovers intertwined in the frivolity of life Leaned one over with gallant whisper betrothed domains of ceaseless time
Coaxing her to drop her veil to shroud his cloak around her frailty As two together become one to ride the winds of no tomorrow
Coquette mortality enraptured a beam of light adorned her lips With head leaned back welcomed her captor inhaled the sweet October mist
Caressing gently hallowed bodies undulate for Dusk to see Not yet kissed the waning siren as Azrael waits patiently
For pendulum must swing away from transient fear-uncertainty Although he holds with timeless hands the siren soul safe in his palms
5. Interlude - Ultima Ratio Regum
6. Reprisal - Malis Avibus
The ticking hour of Father Time releases memories locked in mind A wandering beggar digging holes in all unspoken deeds of old A yellow death lay on his face, a smile so fixed not of this race Indeed he'd known where he would go, to where he feared it clearly showed
The devil I can safely tell Has neither hoof, nor tail, nor sting Nor is he, as some sages swear, A spirit, neither here nor there In nothing-yet in everything He is what we are-a gentleman A statesman spinning his web of crimes, A swindler, living as he can
The ticking hour of Father Time released the memories locked in mind The clock's monotonous tick obscured to most this man's so lonely cry He'd said that with his clenched teeth, he'd seize the earth from underneath He'd seize the earth from underneath, and drag it with him down to hell
[Lyrics based on Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Peter Bell the Third"]
7. Premonition - Lex Talionis
Stank lagoons with grasping claws a serpent have released From dungeons of despair and farce to feast on brackish hearts
The walls a tint of crimson fierce speak of vacant names Beheld by missive magot-pies, prophetic in their crow
In vested misery, thy devils damn thee black Not all great Neptune's oceans may ever cleanse your robes
For Weyward Sisters guide the hand, the hand that held the scythe To lands undiscerned in tongue, Cimmerians have roamed
Infidels of tawny hue cannot hide behind The cross that bore a bastard child and reigns in fiery fear
No ends of earth may stifle choirs oracular from magot-pies Perched upon a hungry vault to witness serpent's jaws
Mandibles, sabre-lined, ruthless tear through flesh Grant the mercy shown to those in dungeons of the past
Forsaken hymn cacophonous concluded long and drawn To realms of stank lagoons retreats Leviathan to find repose
8. Eclipse - Vita Nova
Dowager of wandering empires knocking at death's door Putrid winds carried the voices wailing in the night Solitude of land Europa; battalions ominous Conquest dressed in ivory garb attack from east and west
Baleful ballad tragic spews From her lips of lurid blue
Infantries of bony vampires draining one by one From the headlands plunge like death-birds;predators descend Prancing, laughing, undertakers don tools of dusky trade Puppeteers in childish play,ghoulish marionettes
Baleful ballad tragic spews From her lips of lurid blue In a dream I saw her Drape her cloak from sea to sea
In dawn of life she came to flee with lonesome shadows before noon Who dare impede her timely flight or rob of quarry due?
The coy, unwilling silent bride; Misery stands by her side The demon mourner bathes in tears of those she left behind
