Nosce Teipsum - The Wretched Lyrics

Before the beginning of years
There came to the making of man
Time with a gift of tears
Grief with a glass that ran
Pleasure with pain for leaven
Summer with flowers that fell
Remembrance fallen from heaven
And madness risen from hell

Strength without hands to smite
Love that endures for a breath
Night, the shadow of light
And life, the shadow of death
And the high gods took in hand
Fire and the falling of tears
And a measure of sliding sand
From under the feet of the years
And froth and drift of the sea
And dust of the labouring earth
And bodies of things to be
In the houses of death and of birth

And wrought with weeping and laughter
And fashioned with loathing and love
With life before and after
And death beneath and above
For a day and a night and a morrow
That his strength might endure for a span
With travail and heavy sorrow
The wretched spirit of man

From the winds of the north and the south
They gathered as unto strife
They filled his body with life
Eyesight and speech they wrought
For the veils of the soul therein
A time for labour and thought
A time to serve and to sin

His speech is a burning fire
With his lips he travaileth
In his heart is a blind desire
In his eyes foreknowledge of death
He weaves and is clothed with derision
Sows and he shall not reap
His life is a watch or a vision
Between a sleep and a sleep

And wrought with weeping and laughter
And fashioned with loathing and love
With life before and after
And death beneath and above
For a day and a night and a morrow
That his strength might endure for a span
With travail and heavy sorrow
The wretched spirit of man

For the gods have wearied time with heavy burdens
And vexed the lips of life with breath
Death and the great darkness after death

Put moans into the bridal measure
And on the bridal wools a stain
And circled pain about with pleasure
And girdled pleasure about with pain

So what shall be done with all these tears of ours?
Shall they make watersprings in the heavens
To bathe the brows of morning? or like flowers
Be shed and shine before the starriest of hours
Or rather, O masters, shall they be
Food for the famine of the grievous sea,
A great well-head of lamentation
Satiating the gods and fill them full with grieving ere they go?

And wrought with weeping and laughter
And fashioned with loathing and love
With life before and after
And death beneath and above
For a day and a night and a morrow
That his strength might endure for a span
With travail and heavy sorrow
The wretched spirit of man

Alas, our lords, and yet alas again,
Seeing your heaven is gilt as gold
But all we smite thereat in vain
All the floors are paven with our pain
We are clad and fed with grief
And filled with days we would not fain behold
And nights we would not hear of
As we wax old and wither like a leaf

We are outcast, strayed between bright sun and moon
Our light and darkness are as leaves of flowers
Black flowers and white that perish; and the noon
As midnight, and the night as daylight hours
A little fruit a little while is ours
And the worm finds it soon