1. CRYSTAL MONASTERY

She in splendid isolation
Beyond memories of man
Shining crystal guardian
Lands that pierce the sky
Borders of eternal snow
Gleam like heavenly realms
High above the night-enveloped world


2. SILHOUETTED AGAINST SNOW

I see in the skies
A darkness so pure
In space, in my mind
It echoes inside

Rise from canyons of ice
The journey ahead
This, our tale of woe
Voices of the dead
See with crystal eyes
Beyond the realm of man
Above the distant world
Time begins again

Westward we strive
Though prophesied to fail
Hear in mystic valleys
An ancient warning cry

Rise from canyons of ice
The journey ahead
This, our tale of woe
Voices of the dead
See with crystal eyes
Beyond the realm of man
Above the distant world
Time begins again

Beneath the dancing evening lights
We carry on, silhouetted against snow
With burning pride we challenge thee
And in the face of nature's greatest anger
Rise


3. A GRAVE OF PURE WHITE

Ageless her beauty
Virgin she stands
We, merely mortals
Lives in your hands
Fading perception
Wilderness mind
Lives we left behind

Search for us no longer
As we vanish into clouds
Carry us as only memories
For here we shall ever remain
Rest your wearied eyes
Ease the burden of your men
Our journey is finally complete
Let it not have been in vain

Shadows arise in caverns of ice
The gods awaken to claim our souls
I finally surrender myself to you
You, Goddess Mother of the world
As the secrets of our untimely death
Will lie forever among these peaks
There can be no better grave for us
Than a grave of pure white snow

To those who left their bodies here
My sympathetic reveries
In silent repose we join you
Fellow sentinels of the sky
For a shrouded sun descends afar
And I will not wake upon the dawn


4. UPON THE SHIMMERED BOUGH

Behold, my child, the glistening ice upon the shimmered bough
and wind that slips betwixt the trees with melancholy sigh
A land that once caressed your cheek and carved your weathered brow
whose hounds of winter, years from now, will call you to their cry

Come hither now and lay your gaze upon a stream bestilled
that deep within flows, even through the winter's coldest day
And carry with you all that you have seen throughout the years
for every step that you forget will lead you more astray

A thousand miles away
I long for your embrace
The warmth of your breath
Like sun on my neck

Beyond these endless hills
In nearly another world
I wonder if you think of me
I almost hope that you forgot

Embrace the cold, my child
Only death is reconciled
Release yourself from mortal coil
For on this bough you are reborn

Be soft, my child, and sing to those whose spirits wander yet
these snowy hills, and haunt in silent solitude the reave
In lands where time has come to rest in sempiternal bliss
Which mind and body may forsake but souls shall never leave

At the end, in fields of ice
I heard not the wind
But the rushing of my blood
And your immortal voice