Citadel reverberates to a thousand voices, now dumb:
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what have we become? What have we chosen to be?
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Now, all history is reduced to the syllables of our name
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- nothing can ever be the same:
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now the Immortals are here.
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At the time, it seemed a reasonable course
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to harness all the force of life
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without the threat of death,
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but soon we found that boredom and inertia
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are not negative, but all the law we know,
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and dead are Will and words like survival.
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Arrival at immunity from all age, all fear and all end...
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Why do I pretend?
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Our essence is distilled
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and all familiar taste is now drained,
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and though purity is maintained,
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it leaves us sterile,
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living through the millions of years,
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a laugh as close as any tear....
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Living, if you claim that all
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that entails is
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breathing, eating, defecating,
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screwing, drinking,
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spewing, sleeping, sinking ever down and down
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and ultimately passing away time
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which no longer has any meaning.
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Take away the threat of death and all you're
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left with is a round of make-believe;
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marshal every sullen breath and though you're
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ultimately bored by endless ecstasy
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that's still the ring by which you hope to be engaged
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to marry the girl who will give you forever
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- that's crazy, and plainly
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that simply is not enough.
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What is the dullest and bluntest of pains,
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such that my eyes never close without feeling it there?
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What abject despair demands an end
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to all things of infinity?
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If we have gained, how do we now meet the cost?
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What have we bargained, and what have we lost?
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What have we relinquished, never even knowing
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it was there?
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What chance now of holding fast the line,
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defying death and time
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Everything we had is gone?
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Everything we laboured for and favoured more
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than earthly things reveals the hollow ring
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of false hope and of false deliverance.
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But now the nuptial bed is made,
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the dowry has been paid,
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the toothless, haggard features of Eternity
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now welcome me between the sheets
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to couple with her withered body--my wife. Hers forever,
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hers forever,
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hers forever
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in still life.
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Still Life
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Van Der Graaf Generator |