30 November 2005

The Lay of Life and Loss

Many readers have asked to see the lyrics of The Lay of Life and Loss. I've posted the first song here. For the full text, go to Sullivan's blog.

Song One: The Wood & the Battlefield
The drums of battle echo in darkness
And sleep eludes my eyes;
The sound of horses pounding past my window
Keeps me awake at night.
Every day they bring them to me
So many men lost to war.
Dying for the sake of dying,
Not knowing what they’re dying for.

Here beneath the Mistress of the Mountain
The witness of my birth;
The trees look on
as death surrounds them,
Mourning the bleeding earth.
On the wind a voice is calling.
Sweetness lingers on the air
As I leave this present darkness
and step into a place more fair.

Bridge
Whose is the voice that calls me?
Where is the heart I seek?
Where is the valiant man
To make life whole again?

Through the forest
then my footsteps wander.
The din of battle fades away
in the peaceful web
of snow and branches where once I used to play.

In this time, when men are different
Life is death well met
Cup bestowed by queen at table
And sacrifice without regret.

Fraujinondei fairguni sa bairka
Tulgus triggwa standiþ bandwa bairhta.

[Mistress of the mountain, the birch,stands strong and faithful, a bright token.]

© 2005 Silver Scroll Productions

1 comment:

Eric Kingsepp said...

Don't forget the two lines of Gothic sung at the end, almost during the transition between the first and second song (as performed, all three songs ran into each other musically):

Fraujinondei fairguni sa bairka
Tulgus triggwa standiþ bandwa bairhta.

[Mistress of the mountain, the birch,
stands strong and faithful, a bright token.]

Mistress of the mountain is not a Tolkien phrase, merely from my rendering of fraujinondei fairguni, literally "[one] ruling/governing the mountain".