AGALLOCH LYRICS

demo: "From Which Of This Oak" (1997)

The Wilderness As Embers Dress The Sky Foliorum Viridum This Old Cabin

album: "Pale Folklore" (1999)

She Painted Fire Across The Skyline The Mishapen Steed Hallways Of Enchanted Ebony Dead Winter Days As Embers Dress The Sky The Melancholy Spirit

EP: "Of Stone, Wind And Pillor" (2001)

Of Stone, Wind And Pillor Foliorum Viridium Haunting Birds Kneel To The Cross A Poem By Yeats

album: "The Mantle" (2002)

A Celebration For The Death Of Man... In The Shadow Of Our Pale Companion Odal I Am The Wooden Doors The Lodge You Were But A Ghost In My Arms The Hawthorne Passage ...And The Great Cold Death Of The Earth A Desolation Song

album: "Ashes Against The Grain" (2006)

Limbs Falling Snow This White Mountain On Which You Will Die Fire Above, Ice Below Not Unlike The Waves Our Fortress Is Burning... I Our Fortress Is Burning... II - Bloodbirds Our Fortress Is Burning... III - The Grain

EP: "The White" (2008)

The Isle Of Summer Birch Black Hollow Stone Pantheist Birch White

Sowilo Rune Summerisle Reprise

album: "Marrow Of The Spirit" (2010)

They Escaped The Weight Of Darkness Into The Painted Grey The Watcher's Monolith Black Lake Nidstng Ghosts Of The Midwinter Fires To Drown

1. The Wilderness
It was when I realized that life has no meaning no purpose, no quarry ...no answeres... And all the dreary night that had befallen across the land I slipped into a revery a web of human hand You longed to soar up high to caress the silky winds to embrace and kiss as lovers ...the ether... but fate with cursed hand has struck wretch apon your head this wretch has been the day you were born (human) I live my life alone and all it's misery until the day I turn to stone I shall die alone among the wilderness It was when I realized apon my waking eyes no nightmare of mankind can harm me... I live my life alone among the wilderness until the day i turn to stone Life is but a dream among the wilderness ...I spread my golden wings set sail my weightless form

and soar into the cosmos ...Forevermore...

2. As Embers Dress The Sky

The shallow voice of the wind cries between these ebony wings The shallow cries of the win sing a swansong for mankind Shine on morning skyfire ablaze this final day The autumnal end, the dawn of man The centuries fade below my feet I soared above them as they worthlessly poured thought from a chalice as wisdom would flow, twilight would come to pass drink oh hallowed cup of life Shine on evening skyfire paint the sky with the blood of a raven bereavement, oh garment of ebony as embers dress the dusk of man...

3. Foliorum Viridum
[Instrumental]

4. This Old Cabin

...Blood on my hands... I walked in the shadows 'neth an azure midnight sky I walked in the shadows to abscond a life not my own I walked in the night this life I hate Destroy this life, this life I hate return me to the womb thy crystalline will has finally shattered As spring rain paints itself

on the canvas of youth it's snowing still in my heart Will I ride the summer winds or dance apon the crimson horizon will I find paradise in hell? If I go deep into the woods If I go to this cabin As scarlet flowers lust for the dew of morning and infants nurse on the nectar of motherhood As prophets of ruin wield their swords of wisdom and battle forth towards a brighter dawn Take me away from here ...Falling... ...Soaring... If If If If I I I I go go go go deep into the woods to this cabin deep into the woods will you follow?

...Falling... ...Soaring... Take me away from here (This blood) on my hands to celebrate my passing My soul shall bleed for eternity ...in silence... [All poetry by J. Haughm]

1. She Painted Fire Across The Skyline

Oh dismal mourning... I open my weary eyes once again My life has been left hollow and ashes have filled the gorge of my within Last night I hoped and wished I'd die in my sleep but no catharsis was granted to me Will this pain ever pass? The enchanting perfume of winter and the bleak, cold breath of her still haunts me... Oportet ubique pulchritudinem evanescere So half of me rode to the mountains and the other half soared high in the winds to a place where the angels had fallen, the soil gagged and choked on their wings My soul was the pale skyline that she stretched across the horizon

Two years had brought the fire that she paints upon my loathsome canvas She is the dark one... As a bird I watched her from my cold tower in the heavens and when she fell from the northplace, I flew down and embraced her I took her where the snow falls forever, she showed me the haunted woods We gathered together in the oaken palace, free from both death and life The fire blazed in her eyes one day and she tore the soul from my chest With a bleeding heart, I flew back to my cold tower to never escape and lie in a pool of death forever I saw the nightfall... It called to me like a river of shadows It sang to me with the cries of a thousand ravens that blackened the sky as they took flight and sank the Sol I shall never trust the sun again, Eridanis Nadir I ran away far into the woods To find the Sol, I called to her... "I don't want to be forgotten...I never wanted to be human" NEVER!!!!! So alas the sun had descended, her fire burned brilliant in the sky The trees bore their withered silhouettes, that cast a spell upon unearthly white No wolf shall keep his secrets, no bird shall dance the skyline And I am left with nothing but an oath that gleams like a sword To bathe in the blood of man Mankind... [Music by Haughm (7/97 - 1/99)]

2. The Mishapen Steed

[Music by Breyer (12/98 - 1/99)]

3. Hallways Of Enchanted Ebony

Kiss me coldly and drain this life from my lips Let the cold blood flow on it's own... Kiss me coldly and fall away from the soul Long forgotten... From which of this oak shall I hang myself? These ebon halls are always dark... From which frostbitten bough shall I die? As dark as the winter, as black as her ghastly veil As cold as her whisper and chilling gown No corridors of life and beauty These enchanted halls are stained with the blood of night

Ebon halls gleam as ghosts of a fire dance wickedly across a pantheon of marble These weary eyes shall open no more, frozen tightly by the cold embrace of death A charnel house of memories torn and burning melancholy shall embrace me now Hear this call... Beyond endless halls and far across the vast forest, just across the iron gates Whispers... As dark as the winter, as black as her grim mask of death As cold as her sorrow, her ivory tears No corridors of life and beauty No bloodred sky, no colors left in this world It was the light's end [Music by Haughm (12/97 - 2/98)]

4. Dead Winter Days

There lies a beauty behind forbidden wooden doors A beauty so rare and pure, it would make human eyes bleed and burn... ...She killed herself in the fall... I am the unmaker, I bring death to the beautiful dawn With pillor, cold, and a legion of dying angels... ...I killed myself in the spring... A grim bough had hung me high I sank the fires of the Sol Here, nightfall reigns I oppose the light I gather the storms with a sword I wield with hate I shot down the sun with bow and flame Pillorian for the dead winter I am the unmaker The pillorian...the ending I...die... I damn you the dead winters... [Music by Haughm/Anderson/J. William W. (2/97 - 11/98)]

5. As Embers Dress The Sky

The shallow voice of the wind cries between these ebony wings The shallow cries of the wind sing a swansong for mankind

Shine on morning skyfire ablaze this final day The autumnal end, the dawn of man The centuries fade below my feet I soared above them as they worthlessly poured thought from a chalice As wisdom would flow, twilight would come to pass Drink, oh hallowed cup of life Shine on evening skyfire Paint the sky with the blood of a raven Bereavement, oh garment of ebony As embers dress the dusk of man... [Music by Haughm/Anderson (3/96 - 10/96)]

6. The Melancholy Spirit

It was in this haunted place under a moonless cloak of ebony I was drawn to the glow of a young spiritess weeping in the woods The blackest ravens and ice-veiled boughs Have spoken of you, goddess of these bleak woods I yearn for your embrace, spiritess of the melancholia Show me, again, your sweet face Enchant me with your rich, cinder burnt ether Lure me into your arms and bless unto me eternal death She had spoken to the dawn Her words wisped in tongues of the wind And then silence... Pale clouds betrothed the dawn Black rain fell The birds wore masks The haunting stain of her woe Had burned itself into the oak Night had gone Bereaved, I was torn for her One last time I witnessed her beauty in the distance The arms of the trees tore at her morbid gown swaying in the loathsome winter breeze She faded before my eyes Since that day a thousand veiled birds have taken flight And the melancholy rain still pours forever on... [Music by Haughm (4/97 - 3/98)]

1. Of Stone, Wind And Pillor

...It was not long ago when I had fallen from this mortal world, Lost in dream flight to pierce the horizon as a bird... Is this life the pillor I must bear? To grow in this wretched world? ...With hate each day I burn... The birds above, they ride the winds And from each piercing talon dangles a soul The stone awaits my fall Upon a grave I dug myself The birds sing their requiems Please lend me your wisdom to fly above the heavens, Across seas of gold, to my land of frostbitten, ageless night Let me dig my own grave Let me, oh precious noose of mine You are my mother, whose womb around my neck Grants me a world of cold nihility An endless winter night A bitter, black frozen hell For me Forever! Is this the pillor I must bear? To die on this fucking world? ...With hate I die and burn... The birds above, they caress the winds They lend me the wisdom to fly... [Written by J. Haughm ('97)]

2. Foliorum Viridium
[Instrumental]

3. Haunting Birds
[Instrumental]

4. Kneel To The Cross

[originally by Sol Invictus] Give us our bread and bury our dead And kneel to the cross on the wall Whether burnt at the stake or drunk at the wake

Just kneel to the cross on the wall We've original sin, but we might just get in If we beg to the cross on the wall It's love your neighbour and rattle your sabre But kneel to that cross on the wall. See the roof fall, hear the bells crash As flesh and bone turns to ash Tried to conquer the sun with a Christian frost The corpses' stench beneath the cross Anf give them gold and they'll save your soul And kneel to the cross on the wall And hail to the boss of the great unwashed And kneel to the cross on the wall They wail and weep, the march of the sheep As they go to the cross on the wall And it's ever so wrong to dare to be strong So kneel to the cross on the wall See the roof fall, hear the bells crash As flesh and bone turns to ash Tried to conquer the sun, with a Christian frost The corpses' stench beneath the cross. And it's ever so wrong to dare, to be strong And it's ever so wrong to dare, to be strong But summer is a-coming and arise! Arise! But summer is a-coming and arise! Arise!

5. A Poem By Yeats
The brawling of a sparrow in the eaves, The brilliant moon and all the milky sky, And all that famous harmony of leaves, Had blotted out man's image and his cry. A girl arose that had red mournful lips And seemed the greatness of the world in tears, Doomed like Odysseus and the labouring ships And proud as Priam murdered with his peers; Arose, and on the instant clamorous eaves, A climbing moon upon an empty sky, And all that lamentation of the leaves, Could but compose man's image and his cry. [From the poem "The Sorrow of Love" by William Butler Yeats]

1. A Celebration For The Death Of Man...

[Instrumental]

2. In The Shadow Of Our Pale Companion

Through vast valleys I wonder To the highest peaks On pathways through a wild forgotten landscape In search of God, in spite of man 'til the lost forsaken endless. . . This is where I choose to tread Fall. . .so shall we fall into the nihil? The nothingness that we feel in the arms of the pale In the shadow of the grim companion who walks with us Here is the landscape Here is the sun Here in the balance of the earth Where is the god? Has he fallen and abandoned us? As I'm stalked by the shadow of death's hand The fire in my heart is forged across the land Here at the edge of this world Here I gaze at a pantheon of oak, a citadel of stone If this grand panorama before me is what you call God. . . Then God is not dead I walked down to a river and sat in reflection of what had to be done An offering of crimson flowed into the water below A wound of spirit from which it floated and faded away . . .like every hope I've ever had. . . . . .like every dream I've ever known. . . It washed away in a tide of longing, a longing for a better world From my will, my throat, to the river, and into the sea. . . . . .wash away. . . . . .fade away. . . Here is the landscape Here is the sun Here at the edge of the earth Where is the god? Has he fallen to ruin? As I'm stalked by the shadow of death's hand My heathen pride is scarred across the land

3. Odal
[Instrumental]

4. I Am The Wooden Doors

When all is withered and torn And all has perished and fallen These great wooden doors shall remain closed. . . When the heart is a grave filled with blood And the soul is a cold and haunted shall of lost hope When the voice of pride has been silenced And dignity's fires are but cinders . . .their grandeur shall remain untainted It is this grandeur that protects the spirit within From the plight of this broken world, from the wounds in her song I wish to die with my will and spirit intact The will that inspired me to write these words Seek not the fallen to unlock these wooden doors

5. The Lodge
[Instrumental]

6. You Were But A Ghost In My Arms

Like snowfall, you cry a silent storm Your tears paint rivers on this oaken wall. . . Amber nectar, misery ichor . . .cascading in streams of hallowed form For each stain, a forsaken shadow You are the lugubrious spirit Etched in the oak of wonder You are the sullen voice and silent storm Each night I lay Awakened by her shivering silent voice From the shapes in the corridor walls. It pierces the solitude like that of a distant scream In the pitch-black forest of my delusion. . . With each passing day, a deeper grave. . . "Why did you leave me to die?" "Why did you abandon me?" "Why did you walk away and leave me bitterly yearning?"

Her haunting, contorted despair was etched into the wood's grain Though fire rages within me, no fire burns fiercer than her desire The shape whispers my name. . . I damn this oak! I damn her sorrow! I damn these oaken corridors That bear the ghosts of those I've thrown away! Though tempted I am to caress her texture divine And taste her pain sweet, sweet like brandy wine; I must burn these halls, these corridors And silence her shrill, tormenting voice . . .forever. . . Like snowfall, you cried a silent storm No tears stain this dust in my hands But from this ashen gray, her voice still Whispers my name. . . You were the lugubrious spirit Who haunted the oak of wonder You were the geist that warned this frozen silent storm You were but a ghost in my arms

7. The Hawthorne Passage

[Instrumental]

8. ...And The Great Cold Death Of The Earth

Life is a clay urn on the mantle And I am shattered on the floor Life is a clay urn on the mantle And I am scattered on the floor We are the wounds and the great cold death of the earth. . . "Earth is floating on the waters like an island, Hanging from four rawhide ropes Fastened at the top of the Sacred four directions. The ropes are tied to the ceiling of the sky, When the ropes break, this world will come Tumbling down and all living things will fall with it and die. . ." Life is a clay urn on the mantle And I am the fragments on the floor Life is a clay urn on the mantle And I am the ashes on the floor We are the wounds and the great cold death of the earth Darkness and silence, the light shall flicker out. . .

9. A Desolation Song
Here I sit at the fire Liquor's bitter flames warm my languid soul Here I drink alone and remember A graven life, the stain of her memory In this cup, love's poison For love is the poison of life Tip the cup, feed the fire, And forget about useless fucking hope... Lost in the desolation of love The passions we reap and sow Lost in the desolation of life This path that we walk... Here's to love, the sickness The great martyr of the soul Here's to life, the vice The great herald of misery In this cup, spiritus frumenti For this is the nectar of the spirit Quench the thirst, drown the sorrow And forget about cold yesterdays... Lost in the desolation of love The passions we reap and sow Lost in the desolation of life This path that we walk... Lost in the desolation of love The sorrows we reap and sow Lost in the desolation of life The path that we walk...

1. Limbs
The texture of the soul is a liquid that casts a vermilion flood From a wound carved as an oath; it fills the river bank a sanguine fog These arms were meant to be lost! Hacked, severed and forgotten The texture of time is a whisper that echoes across the flood It's hymn resonates from tree to tree, through every sullen bough it sings These boughs were said to be lost! Torn, unearthed and broken Earth to flesh, flesh to wood, cast these limbs into the water Flesh to wood, wood to stone, cast this stone into the water...

2. Falling Snow
The water pours its embracing arms around the stone Decay drips from the unquiet void where the ice forms, where life ends The stone is by the crimson flood, swallowed The red tide beyond the ebon wound, contorted My sacrifice bids farewell in this river of memory... a wave to end all time Red birds escape from my wounds and return as falling snow To sweep the landscape; a wind haunted, wings without bodies The snow, the bitter snowfall You wish to die in her pale arms, crystalline, to become an ode to silence In the soul of a mountain of birds, fallen The cascading pallor of ghostless feather The snow has fallen and raised this white mountain on which you will die and fade away in silence

3. This White Mountain On Which You Will Die

[Instrumental]

4. Fire Above, Ice Below

The woeful silence and wind's reflection Of your body's pale ode, an icy fortress of blood and ages Sky fire above, ice below the hearth Fall away from me to that citadel at the end of time Where death sleeps and dreams of your buried pain There has never been a silence like this before There will never be an ode like this again

5. Not Unlike The Waves

Aurora swims in the ether Emerald fire scars the night sky Amber streams from Sol Are not unlike the waves of the sea Nor the endless horizon of ice Aurora swims in the ether Emerald fire paints the twilight Heidrun bleeds the golden nectar For the rising sun and the moon The midnight wolves who watch over the dawn Solstafir!!!

6. Our Fortress Is Burning... I

[Instrumental]

7. Our Fortress Is Burning... II - Bloodbirds

The god of man is a failure Our fortress is burning against the grain of the shattered sky Charred birds escape from the ruins and return as cascading blood Dying bloodbirds pooling, feeding the flood The god of man is a failure And all of our shadows are ashes against the grain

8. Our Fortress Is Burning... III - The Grain

[Instrumental]

1. The Isle Of Summer

[Children:] We carry death out of the village!

2. Birch Black
[Instrumental]

3. Hollow Stone
[Instrumental]

4. Pantheist
[Instrumental]

5. Birch White
The birch tree in winter

Leaning over the secret pool Is Narcissus in love With the slight white branches. The slim trunk, In the dark glass; But, Spring coming on, Is afraid, And scarfs the white limbs In green. The slim trunk, In the dark glass; But, Spring coming on, Is afraid, And scarfs the white limbs. The birch tree in winter Spring coming on, Is afraid, And scarfs the white limbs In green. The birch tree in winter Leaning over the secret pool Is Narcissus in love With the slight white branches. The birch tree in winter Spring coming on, Is afraid, And scarfs the white limbs In green.

6. Sowilo Rune
Who sleep shall, awake. . Greeting the shadows from the sun. Who sleep shall awake. . Watching the thunder of our lives. Waiting for the moment to arrive. Show us the silence in the rise. So that we may. Someday understand... [Lord Summerisle:] "Now, those children out there, they're jumping through the flames in the hope that the god of the fire will make them fruitful. Really, you can't blame them. After all, what girl would not prefer the child of a god to that of some acne-scarred artisan?"

[Sergeant Howie:] "And you encourage them in this?" [Lord Summerisle:] "Actively! It's most important to teach new generation born of Summerisle be made aware that here the old gods aren't dead." [Sergeant Howie:] "And what of the true God? To whose glory churches and monasteries have been built on these islands for generations past? Now shall what of Him?" [Lord Summerisle:] "Oh, He's dead. He can't complain. He had his chance and in modern parlance. Blew it."

7. Summerisle Reprise
[Lord Summerisle:] And the ministers fled the island never to return. What my grandfather started out of expediency, my father continued out of love. He brought me up the same way: to reverence the music, and the drama, and the rituals of the old gods; to love nature and to fear it, and to rely on it and to appease it when necessary. He brought me up [Sergeant Howie:] He brought you up to be a pagan! [Lord Summerisle:] A heathen, conceivably, but not, I hope, an unenlightened one.

1. They Escaped The Weight Of Darkness

[instrumental]

2. Into The Painted Grey

The jagged lines in these wooden hands speak of a silent aeon below the depths of an austere ebon tide for centuries kingdoms have risen upon the ancient hands of a god once severed for the world's birth a sacrifice to the storms of life now darkness is thine sanctum

Temples of magma steam across the grey The arc that transcends my iconic pride For I am not an ageless god, no, I am imprisoned by time These ancient palms shall once again be mine Hands...hands that lift the oceans to vertical depths above the stars For when I die, the universe will die with me and all will be lost forever gone Where am I? How long shall I suffer here? Forlorn in the cold neolithic embrace Forsaken deep in the sullen tide How long shall I suffer here? Perched on the cliffside gazing out into the brine My archaic beard pours downward and joins the feral sea I am the heritage; the quintessence of myth and legend The archetype of Pagan might and divinity Hands...hands that lift the oceans to vertical depths beyond the stars I gather a celestial blanket around these tired bones and finally slumber in the clouds of ice These are my hands... ...so it is done

3. The Watcher's Monolith

Blue textures cascade downward to the base of the monolith Like brush strokes on a canvas of souls Two arms reach out a cloak of silent nihil Revenants untouched by the scythe They are lost in the dark woods of time Aloft in the landscape that you hail I am the fog that seeps over here in the early hours Standing proud in the hollow of the land A vestige of deeper purity etched in spirit against the sky The menhir had runes carved in limbs of oaken sovereignty and could see the ages growing from within the palms I can feel the era slipping into oblivion, no longer grasping the textures I am slowly becoming stone As wolves celebrate the dusk, an old voice of wisdom haunts the vale Shapes flicker in the fire light through the windows The woodlands burn with grace Their silence drowns the age

As wandering ghosts pass through the flames A new age of rebirth lights the dawn But who are they who pass by the window? The shapes; like black solar wheels scorched in the snow by gods of the stone... This elder stone shall never fall! Cast the aeons into the void So that no other can seek them No age, no hands shall taint them Pour the sorrows into the sun They are lost forever in dark woods of time Carve the symbols into the stone So that another can find them No age, no hands shall change them Pour the ages into the sun They are lost forever in the dark woods of time

4. Black Lake Nidstng

Written in the waters... [voice of the dead:] "Our shadows seep into the dusk like cranes that melt into the pool; a black lake in which they descend pale ghosts caress the Nidstng in the dark its face scarred by the ages, its curse sent with heathen breath to poison the waters of the black lake We are...we are the faces below the ripples A deep sorrow travelled through the woods And found a home in our humble grave" [voice of the Nistng:] "I've sent this peril... To the world; this peril shall spread all sorrows And you are but gods watching from below at the base of the totem in the black temple of the Earth I am...I am the silence inside the tomb You created the stars and gave birth to all the heavens; the darkness of space and time So go...go to the nightside end below" Where have all the noble cranes gone? Where have all the stags disappeared to? Piled below in the tomb of this burdened pool a curse to those who corrupt these sacred woods a curse to those who taste this solemn water No unhallowed breath shall seal a fate before me

Join the drowned in the silence of the black lake's womb Accursed...written in the waters...

5. Ghosts Of The Midwinter Fires

There are ghosts in every hallway In every room, behind every door Peering through every window into the past Holding onto us in the bitterness of the mire Leaving a trace of themselves in the spaces in which they hide ...but there are no ghosts here... There are gods in the wake of every flame The fire that betroths the coldness of the void In every wind, every tempest, and every snowfall In every silence Inside every root that reaches deep into the soul of the Earth ...but there are no gods here... Shadows paint the dusk Ghosts rise from the flames To set alight in the fields In robes of smoke and spirit aligned

6. To Drown
They escaped the weight of darkness to forge a path into the marrow of the spirit They chose to drown in a deeper vacancy an emptiness that quells the null a pool for the forgotten They escaped the weight of darkness to drown in another...