The road bleeds from the ragged mountains
A winding, endless path of black blood
With blistered feet and arching back,
A lone figure in the murky twilight
Has followed the twisted, crumbling track
Too many long days and nights

Crimson veined eyes seek the golden lamplight
The yearning compels his stumbling footsteps
The long remembered face, so deeply adored,
Appears now from the mist as a ghost, Haunted
Tears like silver on the sallow skin
Pallid, bony fingers clutch the tattered cape to his breast

As brightly burning flame, the word is spread
Passed from keen lips of kith and kin,
Eager children tug the strangers arm
And plead for tastes of the vast, unknown world
The prodigal son withdraws fron then his arms,
Shelters his soul beneath the ragged cloak
Speaks not a word of the great, dead world

Sanctuary, warming his bones beside the fire
And with hot broth to quicken his blood
To quiet the trembling in his limbs,
And thaw the raw chill from his flesh
A girl once loved, now a woman, dares ask
Of the world beyond the mountains
And in the dark, deathly, silent stare, she learns
That the prodigal son has not returned

And yet, few have paused to wonder
What could make a man such a lie,
This wanderer, this seeker of mystery
Turn his face back in to the wind
His long and lonely footsteps trace
In yearning for this familiar place

For these is a shadow behind his gaze
Darkness where there once was light
The scar of some grim and terrible sight
Homble and secret thoughts
That scarcely can he bare to remember
Hold within aching breast forever

For in the distant, darkened places
Rabid dogs and rodent swarms conquer
The city streets of mud and mire
And more are dead than living
Lost children scream in the cold night
The Winter snow falls without respite

And all who live are soon to die
The Doctors of black shroud and beaked face
Soldiers and servants, the sinners and chaste
The miasma lingers, the evil air
Permeates every alley, every house, every room
He fled, never knowing he could not escape his doom.

The gentle hands, those tenders of my wounds
They whisper softly, and softly they cry
I have returned, only to be snatched from them
They weep for me and so do I mourn for them
All of them,
For in my embrace,
I have cursed them
For in my return,
I have carried to them,
The slow death

The vengeful Lord has not accepted my penitence
This wandered who once was a sinner
The slow death would too easily release me
From the horror of my memories
So the Lord
In his cruelty
Has cursed me
To in my return
Carry in my bones
This black death

Two score days after our reunion
The will receive the Lord's last touch,
Crimson kisses across the breast
Distended skin of sallow aspect
And they fall
Into fever
They bleed
And they choke
The wounds weep
Their breathes cease

I will my aching bones, burning throat, shivering blood
To now rest and surrender, release me to this black death
Before my haunted eyes are forced to see
Before my guilty heart is forced to feel
The horror
And the hopeless sorrow
That awaits them
I will close my eyes
I close my soul
And they begin to die

All now are ashes, ashes
And they all fall down

Calloused palms and round shoulders
Mud clad with dirt and sweat
From long days alone in this darkness
In tiny rooms of black and crumbling walls
Beneath the grey sky
Toiling day and night,
To open wide the great mouth of the earth
To take back what once was dust
And wo will return to dust

All now are ashes, ashes
And they all fall down

Brought upon a decrepit cart
Of rotting wheel and crooked shaft
These twisted shapes of sallow limb
Through sunken trampled paths of mud
They do not feel, this one last embrace
As I carry them, one by one, to rest
And I sprinkle lime upon their faces
Those once loved, once hated
Those of blood and kin

All now are ashes, ashes
And they all fall down

The dead lay rotting in their beds,
On the road, piled beside their half-dug graves
For now they outnumber the living
And soon the living will carry the dead
As the relentless Winter closes colder
There is little of food and less of warmth
As the cursed lay untended and thrashing in filth

In the depth of the darkest days
The huddle in black cold, alone or in pairs
By the weakening flames of a fading fire
As they await the dire marks of the curse
And they shiver into the throes of deadly fever
In their lonely death, in the cold dark days
They will never know if they were the last

Empty vistas of moor and mountain
Embrace this valley of burgeoning green
Where amongst the silent houses
The crops have gone to seed
And the fould have fled the coup
A door hangs ajar, beats lowly in the breeze
The wood rots slowly in the swirling wind

In the endless silence, every child of this place
Every mother, father, friend and fiend
Is cursed now with the same grim face
Of sunken eye and putrid skin
Shrivelled lips bare grinning teeth
And in the lonely silence, there is not a soul
To remember that here, there once was life