Pale Folklore (1999)


1. She Painted Fire Across The Skyline

Oh dismal mourning...
I open my weary eyes once again
My life has been left hollow and ashes have filled the gorge of my within
Last night I hoped and wished I'd die in my sleep but no catharsis was granted to
me
Will this pain ever pass?
The enchanting perfume of winter and the bleak, cold breath of her still haunts
me...
Oportet ubique pulchritudinem evanescere

So half of me rode to the mountains and the other half soared high in the winds
to a place where the angels had fallen, the soil gagged and choked on their wings
My soul was the pale skyline that she stretched across the horizon
Two years had brought the fire that she paints upon my loathsome canvas

She is the dark one...
As a bird I watched her from my cold tower in the heavens
and when she fell from the northplace, I flew down and embraced her
I took her where the snow falls forever, she showed me the haunted woods
We gathered together in the oaken palace, free from both death and life
The fire blazed in her eyes one day and she tore the soul from my chest
With a bleeding heart, I flew back to my cold tower
to never escape and lie in a pool of death forever

I saw the nightfall...
It called to me like a river of shadows
It sang to me with the cries of a thousand ravens that blackened the sky as they
took flight
and sank the Sol
I shall never trust the sun again, Eridanis Nadir

I ran away far into the woods
To find the Sol, I called to her...
"I don't want to be forgotten...I never wanted to be human"
NEVER!!!!!

So alas the sun had descended, her fire burned brilliant in the sky
The trees bore their withered silhouettes, that cast a spell upon unearthly white
No wolf shall keep his secrets, no bird shall dance the skyline
And I am left with nothing but an oath that gleams like a sword
To bathe in the blood of man
Mankind...

[Music by Haughm (7/97 - 1/99)]


2. The Mishapen Steed

[Music by Breyer (12/98 - 1/99)]


3. Hallways Of Enchanted Ebony

Kiss me coldly and drain this life from my lips
Let the cold blood flow on it's own...
Kiss me coldly and fall away from the soul
Long forgotten...

From which of this oak shall I hang myself?
These ebon halls are always dark...
From which frostbitten bough shall I die?

As dark as the winter, as black as her ghastly veil
As cold as her whisper and chilling gown

No corridors of life and beauty
These enchanted halls are stained with the blood of night
Ebon halls gleam as ghosts of a fire dance wickedly across a pantheon of marble

These weary eyes shall open no more, frozen tightly by the cold embrace of death
A charnel house of memories torn and burning melancholy shall embrace me now

Hear this call...
Beyond endless halls and far across the vast forest, just across the iron gates
Whispers...

As dark as the winter, as black as her grim mask of death
As cold as her sorrow, her ivory tears

No corridors of life and beauty
No bloodred sky, no colors left in this world

It was the light's end

[Music by Haughm (12/97 - 2/98)]


4. Dead Winter Days

There lies a beauty behind forbidden wooden doors
A beauty so rare and pure, it would make human eyes bleed and burn...

...She killed herself in the fall...

I am the unmaker, I bring death to the beautiful dawn
With pillor, cold, and a legion of dying angels...

...I killed myself in the spring...

A grim bough had hung me high
I sank the fires of the Sol
Here, nightfall reigns

I oppose the light
I gather the storms
with a sword I wield with hate
I shot down the sun with bow and flame
Pillorian for the dead winter

I am the unmaker
The pillorian...the ending
I...die...
I damn you the dead winters...

[Music by Haughm/Anderson/J. William W. (2/97 - 11/98)]


5. As Embers Dress The Sky

The shallow voice of the wind cries between these ebony wings
The shallow cries of the wind sing a swansong for mankind

Shine on morning skyfire
ablaze this final day
The autumnal end, the dawn of man
The centuries fade below my feet

I soared above them as they worthlessly poured thought from a chalice
As wisdom would flow, twilight would come to pass
Drink, oh hallowed cup of life

Shine on evening skyfire
Paint the sky with the blood of a raven
Bereavement, oh garment of ebony
As embers dress the dusk of man...

[Music by Haughm/Anderson (3/96 - 10/96)]


6. The Melancholy Spirit

It was in this haunted place under a moonless cloak of ebony
I was drawn to the glow of a young spiritess weeping in the woods

The blackest ravens and ice-veiled boughs
Have spoken of you, goddess of these bleak woods
I yearn for your embrace, spiritess of the melancholia
Show me, again, your sweet face
Enchant me with your rich, cinder burnt ether
Lure me into your arms and bless unto me eternal death

She had spoken to the dawn
Her words wisped in tongues of the wind

And then silence...
Pale clouds betrothed the dawn
Black rain fell
The birds wore masks

The haunting stain of her woe
Had burned itself into the oak
Night had gone
Bereaved, I was torn for her

One last time I witnessed her beauty in the distance
The arms of the trees tore at her morbid gown swaying in the loathsome winter
breeze
She faded before my eyes
Since that day a thousand veiled birds have taken flight
And the melancholy rain still pours forever on...

[Music by Haughm (4/97 - 3/98)]

The Mantle (2002)


1. A Celebration For The Death Of Man...

[Instrumental]


2. In The Shadow Of Our Pale Companion

Through vast valleys I wonder
To the highest peaks
On pathways through a wild forgotten landscape
In search of God, in spite of man
'til the lost forsaken endless. . .
This is where I choose to tread

Fall. . .so shall we fall into the nihil?
The nothingness that we feel in the arms of the pale
In the shadow of the grim companion who walks with us

Here is the landscape
Here is the sun
Here in the balance of the earth
Where is the god?
Has he fallen and abandoned us?

As I'm stalked by the shadow of death's hand
The fire in my heart is forged across the land

Here at the edge of this world
Here I gaze at a pantheon of oak, a citadel of stone
If this grand panorama before me is what you call God. . .
Then God is not dead

I walked down to a river and sat in reflection of what had to be done
An offering of crimson flowed into the water below
A wound of spirit from which it floated and faded away

. . .like every hope I've ever had. . .
. . .like every dream I've ever known. . .
It washed away in a tide of longing, a longing for a better world
From my will, my throat, to the river, and into the sea. . .
. . .wash away. . .
. . .fade away. . .

Here is the landscape
Here is the sun
Here at the edge of the earth
Where is the god?
Has he fallen to ruin?

As I'm stalked by the shadow of death's hand
My heathen pride is scarred across the land


3. Odal

[Instrumental]


4. I Am The Wooden Doors

When all is withered and torn
And all has perished and fallen
These great wooden doors shall remain closed. . .

When the heart is a grave filled with blood
And the soul is a cold and haunted shall of lost hope
When the voice of pride has been silenced
And dignity's fires are but cinders
. . .their grandeur shall remain untainted

It is this grandeur that protects the spirit within
From the plight of this broken world, from the wounds in her song
I wish to die with my will and spirit intact
The will that inspired me to write these words
Seek not the fallen to unlock these wooden doors


5. The Lodge

[Instrumental]


6. You Were But A Ghost In My Arms

Like snowfall, you cry a silent storm
Your tears paint rivers on this oaken wall. . .
Amber nectar, misery ichor
. . .cascading in streams of hallowed form
For each stain, a forsaken shadow

You are the lugubrious spirit
Etched in the oak of wonder
You are the sullen voice and silent storm

Each night I lay
Awakened by her shivering silent voice
From the shapes in the corridor walls.
It pierces the solitude like that of a distant scream
In the pitch-black forest of my delusion. . .

With each passing day, a deeper grave. . .

"Why did you leave me to die?"
"Why did you abandon me?"
"Why did you walk away and leave me bitterly yearning?"

Her haunting, contorted despair was etched into the wood's grain
Though fire rages within me, no fire burns fiercer than her desire
The shape whispers my name. . .

I damn this oak!
I damn her sorrow!
I damn these oaken corridors
That bear the ghosts of those I've thrown away!

Though tempted I am to caress her texture divine
And taste her pain sweet, sweet like brandy wine;
I must burn these halls, these corridors
And silence her shrill, tormenting voice
. . .forever. . .

Like snowfall, you cried a silent storm
No tears stain this dust in my hands
But from this ashen gray, her voice still
Whispers my name. . .

You were the lugubrious spirit
Who haunted the oak of wonder
You were the geist that warned this frozen silent storm
You were but a ghost in my arms


7. The Hawthorne Passage

[Instrumental]


8. ...And The Great Cold Death Of The Earth

Life is a clay urn on the mantle
And I am shattered on the floor
Life is a clay urn on the mantle
And I am scattered on the floor
We are the wounds and the great cold death of the earth. . .

"Earth is floating on the waters like an island,
Hanging from four rawhide ropes
Fastened at the top of the Sacred four directions.
The ropes are tied to the ceiling of the sky,
When the ropes break, this world will come
Tumbling down and all living things will fall with it and die. . ."

Life is a clay urn on the mantle
And I am the fragments on the floor
Life is a clay urn on the mantle
And I am the ashes on the floor
We are the wounds and the great cold death of the earth
Darkness and silence, the light shall flicker out. . .


9. A Desolation Song

Here I sit at the fire
Liquor's bitter flames warm my languid soul
Here I drink alone and remember
A graven life, the stain of her memory
In this cup, love's poison
For love is the poison of life
Tip the cup, feed the fire,
And forget about useless hope...

Lost in the desolation of love
The passions we reap and sow
Lost in the desolation of life
This path that we walk...

Here's to love, the sickness
The great martyr of the soul
Here's to life, the vice
The great herald of misery
In this cup, spiritus frumenti
For this is the nectar of the spirit
Quench the thirst, drown the sorrow
And forget about cold yesterdays...

Lost in the desolation of love
The passions we reap and sow
Lost in the desolation of life
This path that we walk...
Lost in the desolation of love
The sorrows we reap and sow
Lost in the desolation of life
The path that we walk...