In Darkness Veiled - Lethean

I drank of your font, sweet oil of vitriol

Danced on light feet in your sunshine

Intoxicated by your fragrance

Oh life!

I exalted in your light

But now your golden rays reach me not

In lustreless forests I falter

Bleeding and weary with every step I take

Can you hear the clatter of the gyves?

Wounds soaked in bitterness strike through upon the coverlet

No salve to ease the sting where the rapier rushed in

Idle hands reach for the rope’s caress

Restless eyes look to the bough

Back broken, legs fettered, arms open wide

From tenebrosity I limp towards the light

Will the candle burn for me, will the sun still rise?

Can the hand of grace still lift the darkness from these eyes?

‘Behold thineself,' whispered the mage

As I knelt by the water’s edge

‘Whose ghostly visage is illuminated here?

Whose are these cold and distant eyes?'

Hemp and holly bind the limbs

And hessian lets through a crimson stain upon the floor

Where footsteps fall no more

Who will listen for my penance to be read?

Who will weep for me when the last drop is shed?

Back broken, legs fettered, arms open wide

From tenebrosity I limp towards the light

Will the candle burn for me, will the sun still rise?

Can the hand of grace still lift the darkness from these eyes?

Then in the black wold, a candle burns low

From uncertainty I crawl towards your glow

Where pain is not my mistress, nor agony my throne

Shall I see your face again, or walk the dark alone?