SOPOR AETERNUS LYRICS

1. The Oblong Box

Madre

2. Dreamland

By a route, obscure and lonely
Haunted by ill angels only
Where an eidolon, named night
On a black throne reigns upright
I have reached these lands but newly
From an ultimate dim Thule
From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime
Out of space and out of time

Bottomless vales and boundless floods
And chasms and caves and titan woods
With forms that no man can discover
For the tears that drip all over
Mountains toppling evermore
Into seas without a shore
Seas that restlessly aspire
Surging unto skies of fire
Lakes that endlessly outspread
Their lone waters, lone and dead
Their still waters, still and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily

By the lakes that thus outspread
Their lone waters, lone and dead
Their sad waters, sad and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily
By the mountains near the river
Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever
By the grey woods, by the swamp
Where the toad and the newt encamp
By the dismal tarns and pools
Where dwell the ghouls
By each spot, the most unholy
In each nook most melancholy
There, the traveller meets aghast
Sheeted memories of the past
Shrouded forms that start and sigh
As they pass the wanderer by
White robed forms of friends long given
In agony, to the earth and heaven

For the heart whose woes are legion
('Tis) This is peaceful soothing region
For the spirit that walks in shadow
('Tis) This is,
('Tis) This is Eldorado
But the traveller, travelling through it
May not, dare not openly view it
Never its mysteries are exposed
To the weak human eye unclosed
So wills its king, who hath forbid
The uplifting of the fringed lid
And thus the sad soul that here passes
Beholds it but through darkened glasses

By a route, obscure and lonely
Haunted by ill angels only
Where an eidolon, named night
On a black throne, reigns upright
I have wandered home but newly
From this ultimate dim Thule

I have wandered home

3. Eldorado

Gaily bedight
A gallant knight
In sunshine and in shadow
Had journeyed long
Singing a song
In search of Eldorado

But he grew old
This knight so bold
And over his heart a shadow
Fell, as he found
No spot of ground
That look(ed) like Eldorado

And as his strength
Failed him at length
He met a pilgrim shadow
"Shadow," said he
"Where can it be
This land of Eldorado?!"

"Over the mountains
Of the moon
Down the valley
Of the shadow
Ride
Boldly ride
If you seek for Eldorado"
(The shade replied)

But he grew old
This knight so bold
And over his heart
A shadow fell
As he found
No spot of ground
That look(ed) like Eldorado

4. The Sleeper

At midnight, in the month of June
I stand beneath the mystic moon
An opiate vapor, dewy, dim
Exhales from out her golden rim
And softly dripping, drop by drop
Upon the quiet mountain top
Steals drowsily and musically
Into the universal valley

The rosemary nods upon the grave
The lily lolls upon the wave
Wrapping the fog about its breast
The ruin molders into rest
Looking like Lethe, see! the lake
A conscious slumber seems to take
And would not, for the world, awake
And would not, for the world, awake

All beauty sleeps
And lo! where lies
His casement open to the skies

(All beauty sleeps)

All beauty sleeps
And lo! where lies
His casement open to the skies

Oh, lover bright, can it be right
This window open to the night?!
The wanton airs, from the tree top
Laughingly through the lattice drop
The bodiless airs, a wizard rout
Flit through thy chamber in and out
And wave the curtain canopy
So fitfully, so carefully

Above the closed and fringed lid
'Neath which thy slumbering soul lies hid
That, o'er the floor and down the wall
Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall

Oh, lover dear, hast thou no fear?!
Why and what art thou dreaming here?!
Sure thou art come, o'er far-off seas
A wonder to these garden trees

Strange is thy pallor, strange thy dress
Strange, above all, thy length of tress
And this, all this
And this, all this solemn silentness

My lover sleeps
Oh, may his sleep
As it is lasting so be deep
Soft may the worms
About him creep
I pray to God that he may lie
For ever with unopened eye

5. Alone

From childhood's hour
I have not been, as others were
I have not seen, as others saw
I could not bring
My passions from a common spring
From the same source
I have not taken my sorrow
I could not awaken my heart
To joy at the same tone
And all I loved, I loved alone
Then, in my childhood
In the dawn
Of a most stormy life
Was drawn
From every depth
Of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still

From the torrent or the fountain
From the red cliff of the mountain
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold
From the lightning, in the sky
As it passed me, flying by
From the thunder and the storm
And the cloud that took the form

When the rest of heaven was blue
Of a demon in my view
Of a demon in my view

6. The Conqueror Worm

Lo! ('tis) it is a gala night
Within the lonesome latter years
An angel throng
Bewinged, bedight, in veils
And drowned in tears
Sit in a theatre
To see a play of hopes and fears
While the orchestra breathes fitfully
The music of the spheres

Mimes in the form of God on high
Mutter and mumble low
And hither and thither fly
Mere puppets they, who come and go
At bidding of vast formless things
That shift the scenery to and fro
Flapping from out, their condor wings
Invisible Woe

That motley drama, oh, be sure
It shall not be forgot
With its phantom chased
Chased for evermore
By a crowd that seize it not
Through a circle that ever returneth in
To the self same spot

And much of madness and more of sin
And horror, the soul of the plot

And much of madness and more of sin
And horror, the soul of the plot

But see, amid the mimic rout
A crawling shape intrudes
A blood red thing that writhes
From out the scenic, solitude
It writhes
It writhes
With mortal pangs
The mimes become its food
And the angels sob at vermin fangs
In human gore
(Imbued)
Imbued

Out are the lights, out all
And over each quivering form
The curtain, a funeral pall
Comes down with the rush of a storm
And the angels, all pallid and wan
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, man
And its hero
The conqueror worm

7. Alone (2)

[Instrumental]

8. The City In The Sea

Lo! death has reared himself a throne
In a strange city, lying alone
Far down, within the dim west
Where the good and the bad
And the worst and the best
Have gone to their eternal rest

There shrines and palaces and towers
Time eaten towers that tremble not
Resemble nothing that is ours
Around by lifting winds forgot
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie

No rays from the holy heaven come down
On the long night time of that town
But light from out the lurid sea
Streams up the turrets silently
Gleams up the pinnacles, far and free

Up domes, up spires, up kingly halls
Up fanes, up Babylon, like walls
Up shadowy long forgotten bowers
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers
Up many and many a marvellous shrine
Whose wreathed friezes intertwine
The viol, the violet and the vine
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie

So blend the turrets and shadows there
(So blend the turrets and shadows there)
That all seem
(That all seem)
Pendulous in air
While from a proud tower
In the town
(Death)
Death looks gigantically down

There, open fanes and gaping graves
Yawn level with the luminous waves
But not the riches, there that lie
In each idol's diamond eye
Not the gaily jewelled dead
Tempt the waters, from their bed
For no ripples curl, alas!
Along that wilderness of glass
No swellings tell that winds may be
Upon some far-off happier sea
No heavings hint that winds have been
On seas, less hideously serene

But lo! a stir is in the air
A wave, there is a movement there
As if the towers had thrust aside
In slightly sinking, the dull tide
As if their tops had feebly given
A void within the filmy heaven
The waves have now a redder glow
(Redder glow)
The hours are breathing faint and low
And when, amid no earthly moans
Down, down that town shall settle hence
Hell, rising from a thousand thrones
Shall do it reverence
(Reverence)

9. The Oblong Box (2)

[Instrumental]

10. The Haunted Palace

In the greenest of our valleys
By good angels tenanted
Once a fair and stately palace
Radiant palace, reared its head
In the monarch thought's dominion
It stood there
Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair

Banners yellow, glorious, golden
On its roof did float and flow
This, all this
Was in the olden time, so long ago
And every gentle air that dallied
In that sweet day
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid
A winged odor went away

Wanderers in that happy valley
Through two luminous windows, saw
Spirits moving musically
To a lute's well tuned law
And round about the throne where sitting
Porphyrogene
In state his glory, well befitting
The ruler of this realm was seen

And all with pearl and ruby glowing
Was the fair palace door
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing
And sparkling evermore
A troop of echoes whose sweet duty
Was but to sing
In voices of surpassing beauty
The wit and wisdom of their king

But evil things in robes of sorrow
Assailed the monarch's high estate
Ah, let us mourn for never morrow
Shall dawn upon him, desolate
And round about his home
The glory that blushed and bloomed
Is but a dim remembered story
Of the old time, entombed

And travellers, now, within that valley
Through the red litten windows see
Vast forms that move fantastically
To a discordant melody
While, like a ghastly rapid river
Through the pale door
A hideous throng rush out forever
And laugh but smile no more

11. A Dream Within A Dream

Take this kiss upon the brow
And in parting from you now
Thus much, let me avow
You are not wrong who deem
That my days have been a dream
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night or in a day
In a vision or in none
Is it therefore the less gone?!
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream
A dream within a dream

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf tormented shore
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand
How few, yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep
While I weep
While I weep

Oh, God!
Can I not grasp them
With a tighter clasp?!
Oh, God!
Can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?!
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream,
A dream within a dream?!

You are not wrong who deem
That my days have been a dream
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night or in a day
In a vision or in none
Is it therefore the less gone?!







SOPOR AETERNUS LYRICS