文本歌词

The Souls of the Slain - Richard Burton
The thick lids of Night closed upon me
Alone at the Bill
Of the Isle by the Race
Many caverned bald wrinkled of face
And with darkness and silence the spirit was on me
To brood and be still
No wind fanned the flats of the ocean
Or promontory sides
Or the ooze by the strand
Or the bent bearded slope of the land
Whose base took it's rest amid everlong motion
Of criss crossing tides
Soon from out of the Southward seemed nearing
A whirr as of wings
Waved by mighty vanned flies
Or by night moths of measureless size
And in softness and smoothness well nigh beyond hearing
Of corporal things
And they bore to the bluff and alighted
A dim discerned train
Of sprites without mould
Frameless souls none might touch or might hold
On the ledge by the turreted lantern farsighted
By men of the main
And I heard them say
Home and I knew them
For souls of the felled
On the earth's nether bord
Under Capricorn whither they'd warred
And I neared in my awe
And gave heedfulness to them
With breathings inheld
Then it seemed
There approached from the northward
A senior soul flame
Of the like filmy hue
And he met them and spake
Is it you
O my men
Said they
Aye We bear homeward and hearthward
To list to our fame
I've flown there before you he said then
Your households are well
But your kin linger less
On your glory arid war mightiness
Than on dearer things
Dearer cried these from the dead then
Of what do they tell
Some mothers muse sadly and murmur
Your doings as boys
Recall the quaint ways
Of your babyhood's innocent days
Some pray that ere dying
Your faith had grown firmer
And higher your joys
A father broods Would I had set him
To some humble trade
And so slacked his high fire
And his passionate martial desire
Had told him no stories to woo him and whet him
To this due crusade
And General how hold out our sweethearts
Sworn loyal as doves
Many mourn; many think
It is not unattractive to prink
Them in sables for heroes
Some fickle and fleet hearts
Have found them new loves
And our wives quoth another resignedly
Dwell they on our deeds
Deeds of home; that live yet
Fresh as new deeds of fondness or fret
Ancient words that were kindly expressed or unkindly
These these have their heeds
Alas then it seems that our glory
Weighs less in their thought
Than our old homely acts
And the long ago commonplace facts
Of our lives held by us as scarce part of our story
And rated as nought
Then bitterly some
Was it wise now
To raise the tomb door
For such knowledge Away
But the rest
Fame we prized till today
Yet that hearts keep us green for
Old kindness we prize now
A thousand times more
Thus speaking the trooped apparitions
Began to disband
And resolve them in two
Those whose record was lovely and true
Bore to northward for home
Those of bitter traditions
Again left the land
And towering to seaward in legions
They paused at a spot
Overbending the Race
That engulphing ghast sinister place
Whither headlong they plunged
To the fathomless regions
Of myriads forgot
And the spirits of those who were homing
Passed on rushingly
Like the Pentecost Wind
And the whirr of their wayfaring thinned
And surceased on the sky
And but left in the gloaming
Sea mutterings and me