Alghazanth
Eight Coffin Nails
1. Self-Exiled
Upon winding and stony trails,
where the lead-hearted can never go,
have I found the holiest of havens.
The true North for a seeking soul.
This congregation of crooked bodies
and their motionless circle dance.
It all resounds an unending poem of ordeal
and murderous deeds most sacrosanct.
Wherever I walk, stand, leap or stumble,
it is there beneath my heels.
Forever treated but never trampled
the verdant field of our belief.
Let once again the mundane
drown in the rivers of eternity,
and may magick unlost be newly found
as I in you and you in me.
A raven's feather and my heart
placed on your scales at the darkest moon.
Which one weighs heavier,
and which is blacker of the two?
2. Facing The North
As the sun is slowly cut
by the jagged blade of the horizon,
the sylvan kingdom around me
unveils its blackening face.
In my left eye flashes
the silver sickle of sacrifice,
the golden plate of offering
shines in the right.
O' fire, fill my lungs,
give swiftness to these words.
By their beaks and claws ablaze
are the gates once buried unearthed.
With blood I bless you,
with spells I crown you.
With everything I am I make you holy
and lay you down at His feet.
In His left eye flashes
the silver sickle of sacrifice,
the golden plate of offering
shines in the right.
When the nightsky hymns
give way to the song of the dawn.
On the lips of witches is
the God of Silence restored.
3. Aureate Water
Not even in the abyssal ocean
Did the nail from the sacred forge cool,
And that iron thorn fallen from on high
Was driven into a soil ever-frozen.
By its burning blessing
Everything was transformed,
The ice turned into a stream
And the land into its sole vessel.
Through more and more sacred drops
The stream became a gushing river.
Wild it flowed forth, consuming
Even the earth around it.
Come the deadliest of droughts
Or a winter without end.
The water will not still,
Its course will never bend.
Day after day, night after night,
My mind rides its hidden currents,
And the mirror-like surface
Cradles my truest reflection.
The roaring will,
The earthen heart.
Their essence mixed together,
Their destination the same.
The sea of your shoreless darkness!
4. The Upright Road
Great path-revealer,
Pluck out one of your million eyes
And place it like a kiss upon my brow.
Beholding with your godly vision,
Even if for a fleeting moment will
Unlock the shackles that hold me down.
By the heat of celestial fire
Raining down from the silver lips,
The brew of remembrance boils
In the cauldron upturned.
Luminaries most high
With the mirror in my soul
Your rays align.
Turn me
Into a beacon that
Lights up the night.
Majesties of old,
I shmash my mask
Against the altar stone.
And fashion
From the shards
Another to match your own.
An opened book
Of timeless sorcery
Is the jewelled dome
Arching above me.
In the presence of such wonders
No blasphemy would be more grave
Than a heart unopened
And sight self-restrained.
By the heat of terrestrial fire
Rising up to the crimson lips,
The seed of reverence enters
The blood-cup upturned.
5. At Their Table
By earth, by water, by air and fire,
by spirit most pure I fling open the door.
By word, by gesture, by songs that they inspire,
by will most sound I call them forth.
Where three roads lead and eight winds part
stands our church beyond time and place.
With hooves for feet and flames for heart
around the same fount of power we pace.
There is no higher honour than to sup at their table,
no greater gift than this chalice we share.
The feet that stomp the grave of my own Abel
shall move to the rhythm of a lifelong prayer.
Bright Moon Lover,
make this body writhe.
Black Moon Mother,
with your blood wash my eye.
The wisdom of the dead I raise from the halls beneath,
and the radiance of the stars I draw down.
I speak the spells of old and echo each future deed,
and bind them all in the eternal Now.
There is no higher honour than to sup at their table,
no greater gift than this chalice we share.
The feet that stomp the grave of my own Abel
shall move to the rhythm of a lifelong prayer.
6. The Foe Of Many Masks
With strength I am armoured,
Prayers grace the sword unsheathed.
Armed to the teeth I am,
With devoted thought and deed.
In this war that has been fought
Since the blood in me unfroze,
No sacrifice is too dire,
No torment great enough to oppose.
Foe, march your legions
Right at my kingdom's edge.
None may breach its bounds
Without being torn to shreds.
There are things pure and sacred
And those that seek their decline.
Across the divide between them
We meet eye to eye.
It takes a thousand masks
To conceal one rotten core,
But a single willed strike
Can make its dominion fall.
For one last passing second
I lose myself in your empty stare,
Facing me from the shards of the mirror.
7. Twice Eleven
A face of bone and dried blood
Hovers in the silken darkness,
And unto it I am the mirror.
In the orgy of graveyard shadows
A gate was shown to me,
And unto it I am the key.
The skull of a noble beast
Is placed upon the stand.
And I hold the cleaving sword,
The liberator of its essence.
In the mist of the morn
We stand both triumphant and torn.
Twice eleven times the death bell chimes,
Twice eleven are the poison drops in our wine.
The ring of the Reaper,
We all kiss at birth,
We call him King,
Yet strangely shun His work.
8. Pohjoinen
[Instrumental]
9. To Flames The Flesh
A seed sown by the hands of the stars,
Fallen into the soil raked by the moon.
Destined to rise like others before,
To reach heavenwards from this earthly womb.
With a femur from the corpse of the sun,
Time strikes the harvest drum.
A tree grown by the light of the stars,
Fallen onto the soil graced by the moon.
Bound to dissolve like others before,
To link with its kin through this earthly tomb.
Writ in blood and edged in stone
Is the solemn song of the silent crows.
Swathe my flesh in the blackest satin
Adorned with the spells we shared.
Lay me down on a bed of branches,
And let the flames strike high.
When at last I wake up to greet
The horizons of blazing red,
Arms no longer extend from me
But a pair of golden wings instead.
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