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All lyrics by Tom Phillips except where noted
Copyright 1994, 1998, 2003 Vast Music Lachrymose
 
 
The Drowning Years (2001)

These empty years, in sadness repose
What once were joys now have become sorrows

I drank them all away

Once, I held hopes, loves, and dreams... now they've sunken into the sea
And I've no one left to save me from drowning eternally

I drank them all away
I drank myself away
 

 
Of Empires Forlorn (1997-2001)

Damned, I crawled valleys silenced with death
Through the seas of carnage, over mountains of regret
Reaching summits only to behold barren wastes endless

Just when I needed you the most
You had forsaken me
To this kingdom of ghosts

Bleak are the skies above this ruin
I've found no solace in cathedrals fallen
I am so far from the light and warmth of Heaven

To the hell of myself
Alone I am damned
To weep for you

Now, above this vast ruin alone I stand
All light and hope has fled my kingdom and land
Betrayed by bride and brethren, my heart burst in your hands

Forlorn empires
My kingdoms damned
Forlorn empires
I am damned
 

 
Voice In The Wind (1977, 2001)
Lyrics by Klaus Hess and Tom Phillips

I hear your voice in the wind
Haunting me once again

Maybe our dream IS over
But, the sorrow never ends

I hear your voice in the wind
Haunting me once again
I knew someday, you would leave
And abandon me to forever grieve
 

 
In Aeturnum (1991)

Tearstained are the halls of my empty soul
Melancholia's haunting call is the only one I have known
Innocence has lead me into this void
While years eroded a youth I never enjoyed
Through childhood I slept unsheltered from the scorn
Now I've awakened with age to love ever lorn
Forever and ever I'll search for the solace
Which can only be found in an embrace

In throes of desolation I prayed unto divinity
I endured the emptiness and frigid pain but even god had forsaken me
I prayed to find a solace for my heart bereaved
Only to be forgotten by the god I once believed
Now I serve this punishment under the ice condemned
For my loss of faith to hell I was damned
Downfallen in iniquity, desolate I'll be
My somber stare traverses sepulchers lonely

Eternally, my limbs sealed in place
Livid, and dead I bow my face
The only shelter from the cold
Of the ninth circle of hell

To see what awaits in forever
A lifeless gaze, my final endeavor
I looked through the blackened skies
And beheld the radiance of paradise
My eyes have frozen in false sanctity
Eternally bound, my tears have turned to ice
 

 
Soulsadness (2001)

Sunk into the corner
Where the forlorn drift to die
A broken man stares into his glass
With weeping eyes

Drinking away this empty life
I'm bleeding to death inside
Torn apart by bladed words
In sorrow capsized

I gave myself completely and deeply
But that was never enough for you
More alone than ever,
Your knives have finally pierced on through (my heart)

Drinking away this lonely life
I'm bleeding to death inside
Torn apart by bladed words
In sorrow capsized

Now, I know I will die alone
Cold and broken...
Now, I know Hell is my destiny
You took everything from me... everything...

I am the desolate one
Bleeding
You took everything from me... everything...

Drinking away this waste of life
I'm bleeding to death inside
Torn apart by bladed words
In sorrow capsized
I gave my heart up to your knives
I'm bleeding to death inside
 

 
Epistle No.81 (traditional, arr.2001)
Lyrics by Carl Michael Bellman

Mark how our shadow, Mark Movits mom frere
One small darkness encloses
How gold and purple that shovel there
To rags and rubbish disposes

Charon beckons from tumultuous waves
Then trice this ancient digger of graves
For thee ne'er grapeskin shall glister
Wherefore my Movits come help me to raise
A gravestone over our sister

Even desirous and modest abode
Under the sighing branches
Where time and death, a marriage forebode
Twixt beauty and ugliness ashes

To thee ne'er jealousy findeth her way
Nor happiness footstep, swift to stray
Flitteth amid these barrows
E'en enmity armed, as thous seest this day
Piously breaketh her arrow

The little bell echoes the great bells groan
Robed in the door the precentor
Noisome with quirsters prayerful moan
Blesses those, who enter

The way to this templed city of tombs
Climbs amid roses yellowing blooms
Fragments of mouldering biers
Till black-clad each mourner his station assumes
Bows there deeply in tears
 

 
Sorrow Of The Angels (1994)

Heaven weeps with my sorrow
Through the clouds a veil of black lace
An infinity of angels
Share the tearstreams I pour away
Within the storms of sadness
I'll eternally remain
Love is lost forever
You are mourned by this rain

Forever weeping
 

 
Thus With A Kiss I Die (1990, 1994-96)

Tears fall from my somber stare
Abandoned and nobody cares
I watched you walk away
As if I were never there
You said you are not the only one in this world
Yet you are the only one I've ever loved
From my sole sanctuary exiled
And likewise heaven above

You have forsaken me

Sleepwalk to the gallows
To expel my hollow soul
Unto fire, unto cold
Into hell I must go
A broken heart, a broken wing, I'm falling
Into this pain deep within
Infinitely spiraling
To my sorrow-filled end

You have foredoomed me

When again these eyes you gaze into
You'll see I'm still reaching for you

How could you leave me here?

You have forsaken me
 

 
Into The Wells Of Sorrow (1991)

Ghostwinds draw forth the clouds
That will shroud me in black forever
Once again I stare into the night
Darkness binds my life and death together

The dark clouds a portrait of her
The black-cloaked face of death
Her empty eyes a hallway to heaven
But my sanctum is beyond unfathomed depths

I will never be at rest
Until the sun forever sets

A solemn walk through this maze of paled stones
Monuments to the ending of pain
Souls cry forth from eternal sanctum
Knowing only death remains

Now I stand before the altar
They call me from ethereal gates
I raise my head in dignity
Knowing only death is the absence of pain
 

 
The Death Of Love/La Mort D'Amour (1992)

The once beautiful flower has withered and gone
It is memory's charnel vast that I weepeth on
Lifeless, this lonely heart swoons 'neath my breast
For my tears bring you back not, from silent rest

Lamentations and woe, peace never shall I know
Blood less bitter be than these tears brackish with sorrow
Every promise ever born now lay broken
False words are better left asleep on thy lips than spoken

With autumn's dirge summer doth end
And dreams, like leaves, decay into the wind
Pallid as the breath on which they blow
Is my heart, buried 'neath a solemn pall of snow

This ice holds not sanctum, nor reason
For thy heart's swift change of season
With your dying, element and emotion unfold
And I, I live no longer in this cold

"Sadness, unlike love, is eternal"
 

 
The Mourning (1989)

He who lives twixt pain, pain and despair
Dwelleth 'neath the doom dark clouds forbear
Awaiting the fate's warning
I live this life in eternal mourning
My soul was born buried alive
And waits 'til my body 'neath the headstone lie
Live a death in midnight for ten thousand years
Each day sinking further into a sea of tears
Open the eternal gates of sanctum with my death
Sail into sleep, never awaken again
He who in darkness dwell
Shall find eternal rest, heaven through hell
 

 
Unplenitude (1996)

Aging branches
Reach for the warmth of life
Fleeting from the cerement of ice
So brittle they'd break
'Neath the ashes of autumn
Weak with the weight of eternal tears
 

 
Shores Of Desolation (1988,1990)

A call to the sea to cleanse my soul of ill
Of hate and depression be freed, my fate, thus fulfilled
Summon me forth, the susurration of the blackest tides
No longer the shores of emptiness shall I tread infinitely inside

Frigid mournful winds traverse the chasms of my soul
Awaiting sweet death, I will again be whole
Tumultuous waters extract me from this mortality to which I'm bound
Evolved from the body, useless time expired, futile life drowned