PERSEVERANCE LYRICS

1. Introduction

[Part I: Mayday Hills]

[Music and Lyrics by Gareth Sansom]

[Narrator:]
..and so this opus scorned attracts cognition
The cast of faceless patrons
Whose stories as yet remain untold
Manifest
Curtains decrepit, set, stage and scene attended
Demure as starlight stalks
Through cracks in an ageless vanity
Enter disposition!

2. Mayday Hills

[Music by Rhys Mathew, Lyrics by Gareth Sansom]

[Presenter:]
Bid welcome all, my treasured guests
To that which I present
Six chapters through, two volumes deep
Upon which to obsess
Six tales of darkness, rage and fear
Six horrors of the mind
An unforgiving madness awaits
Ambivalence, the trusting and the blind

Allow me to introduce a collection of borrowed souls
And the stray arcane
From darkest past and yet to pass
Both villain and protagonist are one and the same
Bid venture, join this company
Descend on chaos fair
Through entry pass into descent
And into darkest flair

Our scene arrives at a time and place
Undisclosed, undefined
Amid winter's full-moon tapestry
'Cross moor and mist alike

Through halls enshrined in history
Walls burdened with wicked tales
In which abuse, torment and dark secrets meet
Softly to share their tears
In shadowed corners
Meet fair Naomi
Skin as pale as the purest moonlight
Filtered softly through curtains of fine lace
Hair the colour of darkest Ebony
Eyes the depth of human suffering
Reflecting all..

3. The Final Adeline

[Music and Lyrics by Gareth Sansom]

[Naomi (Act I):]
As ashes gently lain to rest
Upon a quiet soil
Unmoved by winds of turbulence
Unbroken by the fall
Such captivating beauty lies
In that which holds its truth
The unadulterated preservation of its youth

Where angels fell from skies above
From heights of gilded grace
Towards an Earth of faded hopes
And self-inflicted fates
While blows a gale of discontent
Here breathes a sigh of hope
For that which holds its love of life
In the face of such affliction
Thrives alone

I am the final Adeline
The last of a lineage
A child of loss and tragedy
Orphaned through an horrific misfortune
And witness to horrors and deeds transpired
The likes of which would turn the boldest stride
And bleed black the stronger heart

Through corridors of madness
Virgin soil strewn with the fractured shards
Of a fragile youth's shattered mind
I have wandered lost for such a time
As for all hope to others fade
My body bound to Mayday Hills
Where treatment, ill and symptom collide
Distinction often compromised
In a desperate, dire gnosis
(To which you shall bear witness)

4. A Silent Rose In Voiceless Bloom

[Music by Rhys Mathew, Lyrics by Gareth Sansom]

[Doctor:]
Naomi, a child of God's good grace
A testament to patient faith
This fragile orphan life exposed
To patricide and violent overthrow

Such is the modern world's incline
That beauty and adversity are fated meet

We are committed and we are bound
By both virtue and oath
Sworn to pursue a hope, elusive:
Closure for a troubled soul
And peace where only sadness has been known

[Narrator:]
As season wax and yearly wane
So time was passed, our child she grew
From timid youth, through timid years
A silent rose in voiceless bloom

No utterance, no word she spoke
In spite of the gentlest confidence
And when descended winter's snow
Upon her thirteenth year
So August's ghost
Shed softly sheets of frost
Turning tragically aside her vigilance

Let it never be said
That those darkest shades of horror rest
Merely they wait with a tireless composure
For an unchecked window
Through which to visit their wicked wills
Upon the pure

One shadow such, a ghoul, a tempest fierce
With a hateful mind and hollow soul
Oppressed behind eyes of the coldest malevolence
Would stalk the halls of Beechworth with impunity
Twisted through choice; he rots from within
Appearing to the waking world naught
Save a shell to be fleshed
And a beast to be unleashed

So restraint will fail it seems
In the presence of opportunity

And never the twain shall meet
Never the twain shall meet..

5. Trauma

[Music by Rhys Mathew, Lyrics by Gareth Sansom]

[Tall Man (Act II):]
Through years of lucid trauma
Through tears and sleepless nights have I screamed
Bid terrors, leave this savant!
Get out mine ears, away my sight!

With every waking hour
She calls to me with wanton grace
How can I stay this horror
And the truth of my affliction mirrored in her face?

[Narrator:]
In darkest witching hour
His twisted form closed distance
As he crept towards her dorm
They watched, disfigured, shadows flickered
Darkness clothed the moon
Choked silent and left breathless of splendour
As he descended at her bedside..

Awakened by a whisper rose above the storm without
Two fisted, she resisted as he clasped one hand across her tiny mouth

As fell the pall in silence
So too the fragile veil
In the courtyard outside
A murder of ravens, relieving themselves of sight
Chose their remaining days in darkness
As if the shame would never leave them

6. Pendulum

[Music by PERSEVERANCE]

[Pendulum (Act III)]

[Instrumental]

[Part I: Spiritual Deconstruction]

[Part II: Hopeless, Dreamless]

[Part III: Silence, Forever; Endless]

[End of Part I: Mayday Hills]

7. DSM-V

[Bonus Track]

[Music by Rhys Mathew, Lyrics by Gareth Sansom]

In my memories
I can see the sky as it was when I was a child
Gazing up above the fences of our yard
It was endless, so beautiful and blue

My world, the world I knew was so small
Our humble home the universe
There were no crowds, no town
No thoughts of backing out

I haven't been able to since then
To just lie in the grass
And let my thoughts run into those endless skies
To lose all track of time
And just live again..

Everything has changed now, and changed forever
I can't see the vibrant colours as they used to be
Or hear the wind rustling through the trees
It's all lost it's flavour

All hope has slowly been replaced by fear
Fear of destitution, fear of rejection and of failure
Fear of losing it all

I sometimes feel that the only reason for perseverance
Is in the hope of feeling once more like we did when we were children
Of feeling the security of our family, and of our childhood
And the belief that things really would get better

I chanced to walk past that old house the other day
I am still there, somehow, lying in the grass
Looking up and watching the clouds pass by
The child is still there, in that calm world
Forever innocent, forever hopeful
His Mother and Father will always be there to love him

I thought to myself as I passed;
That I have made so many mistakes in my life
I have drifted so far from the path
That I can no longer find my way back through the darkness
That I have failed this child so utterly, so completely
Just as the reality of the world has failed him

That I don't deserve to be here, in this place

I stood then and looked at our house one last time
Just long enough to allow what happiness remained in me
To leave my body, and rejoin that child in his perfect world
Of love and joy, and laughter
Of warmth and peace, and beauty
Before turning back toward the decaying highway
And returning to the awful mess my life has become





PERSEVERANCE LYRICS