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"All Hope Abandon Ye Who Enter Here." |
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-Dante, The Inferno |
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Bring forth the Light, |
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To raze colonies |
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In a single cleansing breath. |
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Don't sleep, my queen; |
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The sun rises one less time |
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Than it will set. |
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Now overhead, the stars |
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That guided our forebears |
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Have turned to dust. |
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And underfoot, the churning |
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Framework of this earth |
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Succumbs to rust. |
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Bring forth the Light. |
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These dreams of Thunder displace, |
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Dismantled spirit's burnt bare- |
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Sylphs in the shards resounding, |
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"Open to the Field!" |
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Depatterned, floating in Grace, |
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Mapping the fragments... |
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"For to awaken and reassemble, |
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Enter by the narrow gates." |
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All has been inscribed |
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In the footnotes of time, |
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From the rising dead |
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To the falling rains; |
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From these proving grounds |
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To the burial mounds |
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Of fallen satellites' |
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Skeletal remains. |
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From a timeworn note's |
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Subtle feeling-tone, |
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To the coiled scales |
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In this mistaken mode. |
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Felt the birch bark walls |
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Of the temple shake, |
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When those who from heaven, |
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To this earth came. |
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From Eleusia |
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To the Killing Fields; |
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From the Promised Land |
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To the coming plague; |
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From the trenches of |
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Every whispered war, |
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To the future wreckage |
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Of the Large Array. |
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For the gate is wide, |
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And the way is broad, |
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That delivered me |
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(Insufferable in-between) |
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From the fleeting dawn |
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To this endless night, |
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In the labyrinth |
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Of the Iron Kings. |
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Now my footsteps take precedence as the traffic sounds fade, |
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And this city's lungs have purged their last breath. |
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I'm held captive at the curb before the World's End Lane, |
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Where I pledge my self to uncertainty. |
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From this shattered breaking point each new step must be |
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Nothing short of the saddest act of sorcery. |
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In search of that fleeting adversity, |
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O, merciless emptiness, that used to possess me... |
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So farewell Persephone, at rest on the altar, |
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Who dared to merge stone with the skies. |
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What curses of men guard the bridges you built, dear? |
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What doorways, what star-gates have you left behind? |
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So I'm following stardust, what's left of the twilight, |
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To get to that last jagged line. |
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To the edge of the earth by the age of rebirth. |
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I'll dissolve, end this realm, and reclaim what is mine. |
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Take in the knitting air, |
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Part with the cleansing breath, |
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Destiny turns the soils in which we manifest. |
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Suffer the burning coals, |
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Yield to the spiral tides, |
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Peer into the darkness, that all may be defined. |
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(swing wide the narrow gates) |