There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream The earth, and every common sight To me did seem Apparelled in celestial light The glory and the freshness of a dream It is not now as it hath been of yore Turn wheresoe'er I may By night or day The things which I have seen I now can see no more Weak for too long to notice the calling Weak for too long to feel the falling Days carried on, their touch but an instant No time to hear my voice in the distance Reading the pages of life He summoned the will to rejoice in the dark Lessons learned from forefathers Must surely be enough for a spark His fist was tightly clenched around The seeds he had amassed He climbed the trees of strangers Sought the etchings of their past But in the night, violence dreamt of his mind And where it opens Constructing a fortress of knowledge He left no future in the arms of chance Avoid any hypocrisy Avoid the failures dance Useless, his free soul Ensure control Black words spewed forth from his head One for each thought he had saved Solidifying, rusting forms They sealed in the cave Excavation of will from The vaults of the earth Sunlight burning through his back As his eyes sought dirt Almost there, a time to be strong He was almost there, but he waited too long Every piece, every word to life’s song He had dug, he’d put into place, but the order was wrong He can never let go Madness always creeps slow Breezes of the empty Brush past the surface All the voices wither The limbs are quiet Is there time to return to the plot Of nothing? Can the blood now follow The stream into the sea? A different darkness guides him No path can be chosen Forms become a question He will not know their source, oh