Valediction
I watched death's 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
We've 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
We've 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