1. LET THE HEARTHFIRES BURN

As frigid winds
Whip at the skin of the neck;
As banners shreds
Hang limp so that paid be respects.

Though to dryness runs
The coursing westward stream,
A light yet burns
There where stands the refuge forged in dream.

Gaze back o’er the blackened plains;
Gaze back o’er the endless grey
Left in our wake…
Left in our wake…

Bones chilled to the marrow, ours;
Bones snapped ‘neath our palid scars
That sear the jaw…
That sear the jaw

We’ve long since fled…
(‘Twas we who abandoned our posts…)
Kindle again
That blaze we forsake at the coast.
Unto our kin
Let us bow down and humble ourselves:
Fidelity.

Let the hearthfires burn!
Let them burn until the end of days!
Not the bite of the frost,
Not the thousands we’ve lost
Extinguish their splendour;
Let the hearthfires burn!

Let the hearthfires burn!
Let them burn until the end of days!
Thirty seasons of rime have we
Lain ‘midst the night,
Bones aching for quarter;
Let the hearthfires burn!

And glowing tides
Wash o’er the faces of ash.
And warming blaze, lit within,
Pours on backs having met with the lash.

The sanctum now attained,
And quietude regained,
Eternal slumber takes hold
And no more the tundra to uphold.

Bear this as a beacon high,
Bear this as the flame divine
Lit by the gods…
Lit by our gods…

Ne’er shall the fanatic hordes,
Ne’er shall the loathsome ‘lords’
Defile our (thing)…
Ne’er to defile!

We’ve so long yearned
For respite from the dead and the chill,
And here bestowed
A loyalty ne’er to bend by their will.
Unto our kin
Let us bow down and humble ourselves:
Pledge fealty.

In our hearts do we know
That ne’er deprived us your glowing embers
Those gallant tenders to flame:
Fore’er in song to exhalt their names!


2. CAST INTO STONE

Behold: battlefield whereupon great
Lugus gathered us for at last to
Destroy the bastard,
The evil-eyed thief of our grain.

Armed thus with radiant spear
We stand in awe of him,
The twice son of balor;
The prophecy now stands fulfilled.

“Generations have ris’n and died
While you’ve been serving the wretch.
Hurl aside, then, devotions false;
Launch your spears to the center of their breast.”

Eternally cast into stone:
The monstrous, cast into stone;
These bones we leave, cast into stone;
The evil-eyed at last cast into stone.

Advanced overhill: deformed, crude
Batallions gnashing teeth. in their midst is the
Hulking giant,
Ground trembling with each of his steps.

The solar son cries aloud:
“Ready now your chariots. on the
Sign that I’ve shown you,
Go forth and have your revenge.”

“Generations have ris’n and died
While we’ve been serving the wretch.
Hurl aside, then, your devotions false;
Let us launch our spears to the center of their breast.”

Eternally cast into stone:
The monstrous, cast into stone;
These bones we gnaw, cast into stone;
The evil-eyed at last cast into stone.

“The bastard’s there
And without arms:
Assemble yourselves before him!”

“Draw back the sling,
Let fly with stone;
May its path hold true,
May his tyranny end.”

The earth groans beneath his weight,
Defeated and cold,
The flame of his single eye
Extinguished by the son of his son.

Woe stains our victory;
We howl at the sea.
Our king of the silver hand
Lies lifeless by the corpses we made.

Though we’ve broken your shields
And have reclaimed our fields
No retribution have we found.

While yet one of you lives
We can never forgive.
We will chase you down to the depths of the sea.

Eternally cast into stone:
The monstrous, cast into stone;
These bones we gnaw, cast into stone;
The evil-eyed at last cast into stone.


3. DRINK TO YOUR DEAD

Leaving behind a legacy broken
By unloyal worms whose names need not spoken;
The green of our home a swift-fading shore.
In nominae patriae

A vessel in rot with planks cracked and creaking:
Within festers plague infecting our weakest
The fire in our heads burns forevermore

Mem’ries of our fatherland:
Flame imperishable
Mem’ries of our kin who’ve died
Remain in our hearts, thus we raise up our glass

Drink, drink, drink to your dead
For our pride and their glory and things left unsaid
Drink, drink, drink to your dead
For our pride and their glory and things left unsaid

Months have now passed: our numbers diminish
To heave or to haul th’remains of the vanquished?
There’s valor within our comrades no more
In nominae patriae

A well-knowing glance exchanged among kindred,
Whose hands fly to hilts, whose eyes burn with vengeance.
“Cowards we’re not: resteer, then, the course!”

Mem’ries of our fatherland:
Flame imperishable
Mem’ries of our kin who’ve died
Remain in our hearts, thus we raise up our glass

Drink, drink, drink to your dead
For our pride and their glory and things left unsaid
Drink, drink, drink to your dead
For our pride and their glory and things left unsaid

Drink!
Drink!


4. A FLAME IN THE WOODS

Sin: never a thing I’d pondered
What with those heathen gods,
My inheritance.

Thus begs the question:
To bear or to relinquish?

Age leaving its marks of greyness
On these eyes of ivory
Burdened with doubt.

Thus calls the answer:
Set flame and have your freedom.

And so does my body return to dust:
Vital again, vibrant again, once again.
Lashed thus to this ancient bark to die,
Burning to ash: am I now clean? am I reborn at last?

Time, foul enemy of glory,
Would you so strip away
Such bliss and such mirth?

Still we give this counsel:
Set flame and know your freedom.

Spirit! no spirit had I honored
Until my very own crumbled
Before my eyes.

And so does my body return to dust:
Vital again, vibrant again, once again.
Lashed thus to this ancient bark to die,
Burning to ash: am I now clean? am I reborn at last?

Clarity at last!
Such respite at last!
To again know mirth,
And at last to see rebirth!

Anguish disappeared!
Regret disappeared!
Repentance needs not here, for
It is but a flame in the woods...

Spirit! no spirit had I honored
Until my very own crumbled
Before my eyes.

Set
Flame
Know freedom

Set
Flame
Know freedom

Set
Flame
Know freedom

Set
Flame
Know freedom


5. HEADLESS

Hear and take heed:
A folk malign,
A folk baleful and crude:
What touched is consumed.

Rubbing their hands
In greed and hunger
For this thing alone:
A fullscale reduction to bone.

Look as they flee:
Their gait and their mien
Betraying
What had e’er been foreseen.

Sickened since birth,
A multitude of stooping swine
Without merit for worth.

Fools are they we name
(Headless!).
They fall at our feet!

“Tyrants,” they so cry.
(Headless!)
Comeuppance complete.

They crawl through their grime.
(Headless!)
We’ll know no defeat.

Again, yea, hear their name:


Headless!
Headless!
Headless!
Headless!

Opulence, this?
Is this how you name your
Spoils bellicose
Won from afar?

‘One thousand more,
Just two ten thousands more,’
Hissed th’outlander
O’er the two forks of his tongue.

Hear and take heed:
A folk malign,
A folk baleful and crude:
What touched is consumed.

Rubbing their hands
For this thing alone:
A fullscale reduction to bone.

Fools are they we name
(Headless!).
They fall at our feet!

“Tyrants,” they so cry.
(Headless!)
Comeuppance complete.

They crawl through their grime.
(Headless!)
We’ll know no defeat.

A people pushed too far
Shall not balk at the southern star’s
Beckoning!

A clan with roots so old
Shall not leave with a simple threat of
‘Reckoning!’

Again yea hear their names:


Headless!
Headless!
Headless!
Headless!


6. RELEASE THE MOON

(Instrumental)


7. FORSAKE THE MORROW

A granite tribute,
Memorial to the proud,
Topples to the earth ‘neath the waste of the flock.
“All oe’r which e’er toiled our hands,
Infected with blight and disease.”
Underfoot lie pieces, lie fragments,
Lie mem’ries of glory that fade with the dusk.
“Gaze upon them, writhing and bleating:
Thralls without masters that wallow in filth!”

“And now must we see
In hard white light
What burying our heads past the neck has here wrought:
And now must we swim
In tides of shame,
For even our very same blood has here erred.

For this we shall no more stand!

“Man your brands
While they yet smoulder here.
Man your brands and touch them to the air!
Raze the first
Of these bastions base and foul
Raze them and forsake the morrow’s heirs!”

The resolution
Erupts through the lines:
Purification through fire alone
“Forward’s path that we must now travel is
Paved with the charred bones of cattle and sheep”
Dignity,
Now hereby restored,
Will be won at cost greater than aught else.
“No place here has remorse,
Has regret, has pity.
No: we crave only vict’ry!”

“And now let us burn
To ashes and dust
Those things that would have us to hang low our heads.”
“And now shall we look
Toward standing atop
The piles of rubble which will be their end.”

For this we can no more stand!

“Man your brands
While they yet smoulder here.
Man your brands and touch them to the air!
Raze the first
Of these bastions base and foul
Raze them and forsake the morrow’s heirs!”

“All triumphs of worth are hardly won.
Renaissance is only ever the first.
Judgement comes from us, the bearers of swords.
Sharpen then your blade and spare it not.”

“Immolate the other:
We number but few but there’s strength in our numbers.
Resignation never
Sufficed to cleanse by flame such wreckage as this.”
“We are the arsonists,
And we hold the keys to redemption.”

At last we’ve arrived at the time to turn speech into act.”

For this we have no more stood!

“Man your brands
While they yet smoulder here.
Man your brands and touch them to the air!
Raze the first
Of these bastions base and foul
Raze them and forsake the morrow’s heirs