Libitina Valediction

I watched deaths shadow darken over you



Gather you silently under its jealous view



While I could only look on distraught



Fighting to hold your live form in thought



Knowing we will never meet again



Knowing that time will never come again







Safe times grow distant, days of few fears



Intangible memory mockingly leers



Once faceless, now death stares me in the eyes



With this Earth I have lost another tie



Knowing we will never meet again



Knowing that time will never come again







A valediction to those friends now lost and gone



Weve fought bravely but time has always won



All that we can seek is dignity in retreat



Acceptance of the fact of certain defeat



I feel so mortal and as fragile as you



Dust claims dust and that way we will all go



Innocence is lost and can never be regained



The act draws to its close



The play will start again







In youth we imagined ourselves as gods



All could be achieved, no matter the odds



Immortal and worthy of sacrifice



In our favour the Fates loaded the dice



And they poured libations to our folly



The pride of ever more distant glory







For us was slaughtered the fatted calf



When the heavens thundered, we did laugh



The whole world was ours for the taking



The tension in the air of our own making



And they poured libations to our folly



The pride of ever more distant glory







A valediction to those friends now lost and gone



Weve fought bravely but time has always won



All that we can seek is dignity in retreat



Acceptance of the fact of certain defeat



I feel so mortal and as fragile as you



Dust claims dust and that way we will all go



Innocence is lost and can never be regained



The act draws to its close



The play will start again







So all is vanity



Remember we are dust



Everything we are and all we do must



Surely atrophy, collapse, and fall



Though now we may stand so strong and tall



The old alliances are soon forgotten



With Olympian indifference the gods look on







Soon upon us comes the death of dreams



The rising dawn of the end of our time



With it this mourning valediction



And the deadening loss of all conviction



The old alliances are soon forgotten



With Olympian indifference the gods look on
[ Valediction Lyrics ]