Halls Of Extinction

A colossal temple of bygone times
Desolate, abandoned, encased in ice
Surrounded by barren plains of frost
Preserving the chronicles of life
Walk through the gate and one will see
Six endless corridors of graves
Epic exhibitions of extinction and decay
A monument to the tenacity of life.

Venture down the Ordovician aisle
And witness a gallery of doom
Invertebrates from a forgotten age
When life had yet to diversify on land
An expansion of green sucked the gas from the air
The great Ordovician cooling
Glaciation forced the oceans to decline
Decimating life of the deep
A tragedy written in stone
Our window into the past.

When we fall, we will face an empty hall
Standing majestic and tall
We have laid down the bricks since our birth
Throughout our time on this earth
Now when we are gone
The cycle of life will go on
No one will know we were here
There won't fall a tear.

The third big Phanerozoic event
The great Permian dying
The longest hallway of them all
An otherworldly cataclysm
Volcanic catastrophe
Methane belched into the heavens
Global warmth, acidic sea
Poisonous hydrogen sulphide.

A giant plunging from the sky
Disastrous collision
Tectonic deformation
Forth bringing relentless winter
Violent Cretaceous demise
Mammoth reptiles buried
Enshrined in ancient rock
Under cascades of ashes and snow
Ashes and snow.

When we fall, we will face an empty hall
Standing majestic and tall
We have laid down the bricks since our birth
Throughout our time on this earth
Now when we are gone
The cycle of life will go on
No one will know we were here
There won't fall a tear.