1. |
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Thou silver deity of secret night,
Direct my footsteps through the woodland shade;
Thou conscious witness of unknown delight,
The Lover’s guardian, and the Muse’s aid!
By thy pale beams I solitary rove,
To thee my tender grief confide;
Serenely sweet you gild the silent grove,
My friend, my goddess, and my guide.
E’en thee, fair queen, from thy amazing height,
The charms of young Endymion drew;
Veil’d with the mantle of concealing night;
With all thy greatness and thy coldness too.
“A Hymn to the Moon” by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762)
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2. |
The Tempest
05:15
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[We were] crowded in the cabin;
Not a soul would dare to sleep:
[It was] midnight on the waters,
And a storm was on the deep.
’Tis a fearful thing in winter
To be shattered by the blast,
And to hear the rattling trumpet
Thunder, “Cut away the mast!”
So we shuddered there in silence,
For the stoutest held his breath,
While the hungry sea was roaring,
And the breakers threatened death.
And as thus we sat in darkness,
Each one busy in his prayers,
“We are lost!” the captain shouted,
As he staggered down the stairs.
But his little daughter whispered,
As she took his icy hand,
“Isn’t God upon the ocean,
Just the same as on the land?”
Then we kissed the little maiden,
And we spoke in better cheer;
And we anchored safe in harbor
When the morn was shining clear.
“The Tempest" by James T. Fields (1817-1881)
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3. |
A Knight's Death
06:50
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Banner in my hand, focusing on the field
Men fight for my land, waiting with lowered shields
Hook
For my King, I’ll lacerate and scythe
For His realm, I will conquer
For my Queen, eradicate and slice
For Her crown, I will conquer
Hailing high in gold, enemy standards fly
Raising signals now, hear the eskadrons sigh
For my King, I’ll lacerate and scythe
For His realm, I will conquer
For my Queen, eradicate and slice
For Her crown, I will conquer
Onward!
Hours have passed, no back and forth
Antlers in lock, primal force
Orders bellowed, need to find my lord
My life’s grandeur has passed
Fathom his loss I cannot
In the piles of the dead, no crown to be found
Insignia of infamy
Battlefield at dawn
Roosters crying glory
Hook
For my King, all loss, all death
For His realm, we were conquered
For my Queen, all loss, all death
For Her crown, our bones were ground
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4. |
Nemesis
04:27
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I have whirl’d with the earth at the dawning,
When the sky was a vaporous flame;
I have seen the dark universe yawning,
Where the black planets roll without aim;
Where they roll in their horror unheeded, without knowledge or lustre or name.
I have stumbled by cave-ridden mountains
That rise barren and bleak from the plain,
I have drunk of the fog-foetid fountains
That ooze down to the marsh and the main;
I have haunted the tombs of the ages,
I have flown on the pinions of fear
Where the smoke-belching Erebus rages,
Where the jokulls loom snow-clad and drear:
And in realms where the sun of the desert consumes what it never can cheer.
I was old when the Pharaohs first mounted
The jewel-deck’d throne by the Nile;
I was old in those epochs uncounted
When I, and I only, was vile;
And Man, yet untainted and happy, dwelt in bliss on the far Arctic isle.
I had drifted o’er seas without ending,
Under sinister grey-clouded skies
That the many-fork’d lightning is rending,
That resound with hysterical cries;
With the moans of invisible daemons that out of the green waters rise.
And I struggle and shriek ere the daybreak, being driven to madness with fright.
Thro’ the ghoul-guarded gateways of slumber,
Past the wan-moon’d abysses of night,
I have liv’d o’er my lives without number,
I have sounded all things with my sight;
And I struggle and shriek ere the daybreak, being driven to madness with fright.
Excerpts from “Nemesis” by H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937)
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5. |
Graveyard in My Soul
06:34
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“I am all in a sea of wonders. I doubt; I fear;
I think strange things, which I dare not confess to my own soul.”
Graveyard at Dawn
Unmortal
Graveyard at Dawn
Dark portal
Graveyard at Dawn
Night of Creeping
Graveyard at Dawn
Day of Sleeping
“Loneliness will sit over our roofs with brooding wings.
Denn die Todten reiten schnell.”
Graveyard at Dawn
Unmortal
Graveyard at Dawn
Dark portal
Graveyard at Dawn
Night of Creeping
Graveyard at Dawn
Day of Sleeping
Returning from the chase
Burning despite the haze
"I longed for death. I know that now.
I invited it. A release from the pain of living.
My invitation was open to anyone.
But it was a vampire that accepted it."
See the graveyard in my soul
A black hole in my abdomen
Nothing remains from my temperate days
Nothing but a graveyard in my soul
Quotes from "Dracula" by Bram Stoker (1847-1912) and another vampyric tale...
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6. |
Minotaur
05:36
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He’s pawing the ground
I can hear it from afar
Try to make no sound
I’ll make it, no need for alarm
Minotaur – guardian of the maze
Minotaur – fierce deformity
Minotaur – bovine, pungent haze
Minotaur – void of liberty
Tabanus bovinus encircling me
I fight them silently, but still they’re hurting me
“Get away, you beast, for this man
does not come tutored by your sister;
he comes to view your punishments."
Drawing closer
I feel his hoofs
I smell his stench
He’s coming after me…
Minotaur – guardian of the maze
Minotaur – fierce deformity
Minotaur – bovine, pungent haze
Minotaur – void of liberty
Quote from "Divine Comedy" by Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)
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7. |
The Kraken
06:17
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“Below the thunders of the upper deep
Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth, faintest sunlights flee”
Come, my human friend
Follow me down
To the waters’ end
To the hunting grounds
Cold, hunter’s attack
Behold the waters black
Tentacles that strangle me, Medusean demise
Detached from all the grievances above and all the lies
Ancestral cities lying dormant underneath the waves
Ghosts of bygone nations send their pity from their graves
“From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumbered and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.
There hath he lain for ages, and will lie
Battening upon huge sea worms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep”
Arise, cephalopods!
Feed on their eyes
Die, die down here
No, have no fear
Quotes from “The Kraken” by Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)
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