Nachtgeblüt - Death and the Muse

Music: Nachtgeblüt - Death and the Muse
Illustration: Edmund Blair Leighton - Faded Laurels.
More info at: http://dark-hidden.com/nachtgeblut/20...


Death and the Muse

(Intro quotes from ‘La Reveuse’,
by Marin Marais.)

Death embraces innocence with wings unfolded,
fragility steps on walkways strewn with thorns,
an open casket to see where we are buried,
a graveyard to bid farewell to all future hopes.

When music is the cry of lonely voices
new elegies arise from each old wound;
a lute is tuned to wring tears from the Muses
when plangent scores are filled with drops of blood.

Estranged from the hollow masked ball of life,
fusing with the rueful choirs of the departed;
cloistered in the somber poetry of the night
whilst the bow slowly tears the heart apart.

Playing bereaved dirges to old shadows and the night,
dark alchemy that turns all mourning into art;
drawing inspiration from the ashes of the past,
a Promethean search for soul's remains inside.

Life, the absurd, the meaningless, the pointless,
why must all our paths so bleak and solitary wind?
Who will ever hear those metaphysical concerts?
When will the Muse of tragedy cease to weep?

Death, the harrowing, the tangible, the certain,
why art thou the sole presence haunting all my nights?
When shalt thy bare wings take away this burden?
Why didst thou conceal that the fallen one was I?

(Bass line quotes slightly from ‘Le Badinage’,
again by Marin Marais.)