Penance

Dying Earth

Music: Thorp, Sizer
Lyrics: Walmsley

For far too long we’ve turned a blinded eye
As others scorched the earth, and poisoned the sky
We turned our backs, refusing to act
And refusing to see the cost of our complacency

And now it’s gone too far to change
What once was our cradle will soon be our grave

She is our mother
She is our maker
The seed and the womb
She is the one who gave us life
And one day she will be our tomb

Choking on sand and gasping for air
We turned the rivers dry and stripped the mountains bare
And far too late we saw that our mistakes had led us to extinction

This the garden we have grown from bitter seeds that we have sown

A barren harvest of bitter truth
Where all the seeds that we have planted bear only bitter fruit
And everything we took for granted
Has now been turned to ashes

We’ve gone too far to turn back now
The sands of time have finally run out

She is our mother
She is our maker
The seed and the womb
She is the one who gave us life
And one day she will be our tomb

This is a song for the dying earth
A prayer for forgiveness

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Curtain Call

Music: Sizer
Lyrics: Walmsley

This world is a stage and we are but players
No more than nameless actors playing thankless roles
We all wear masks concealing our faces
Leaving no traces of who we really are

This life is a game and we are all puppets
Condemned to dance upon the strings we cannot see

Like marionettes aware that every single step has already been taken
By those who went before

And through it all we are never satisfied
Always searching for something to fill the emptiness inside

The curtain calls and we step out
Into the spotlight to bask in its glory
The curtain falls, the lights go out
And now we come to the end of our story at last

But there are always those
Who never give in, and cannot let go

The curtain calls and we step out
Into the spotlight for one final time
The curtain falls, we take a bow
And only then we realise…

…that the siren song of fortune and fame
Offers us only two choices
To burn out or to fade away

They build you up, only to tear you down again
And the higher you are, the further you fall in the end

We play the parts that we are given
And read the lines
As they have been written
Never asking why

This world is a stage and we are but players
Searching for meaning where none can be found
This life is a cage from which there can be no escape
And so we cling to this illusion as hard as we can

And in the end one question remains
What will you do when the curtain calls for you?

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Penance

Music: Sizer
Lyrics: Walmsley

I feel the rain upon my skin
Washing away the mark of my sin

But the memory remains like a dark and present stain upon my wounded soul

This the cross that I must bear
My unrelenting burden
That no-one else can share
Nor would I ask it of them

For it’s myself I can’t forgive
All my guilt I can’t forget
So I must learn to live with all the weight of this regret