Mourning Tide

An ice-cold wind
Chills to the bone
A mistswept veil
Clouds the shore.

Horizons yield to pale light
Morning's embrace, a bitter respite
Before the mounds of dead, we mourn
Thousands slain for glory forevermore.

Three days have passed
Since we first gave battle
A hopeless task
Yet we proved our mettle.

Afoot on foreign shores
(Without a hope, without a home)
Helms cleaved and shields torn
(Spears cracked and axes worn)
We few survived to see a new day
(And at this day's end, we will fade away)
Into the tales of mortal men
(For none yearn to see the sun rise again)

We came, not alone
A king, a queen and an army
Victory, we tasted with our blades
Their blood, our blood, now one with the waves.

Malice's touch
An icy grasp
A cruel fate
Not to die.

Bruised and bleeding
Exhausted and freezing
A cruel fate
Not to die.

Tides, come forth and wash me clean
Of grief and loss and misery
Sweep the blood into the sea
And carry this burden so far from me.

Free me of the memory
Of this blood red scene
So many dead as far as can see
All in the name of a land once free.

The dead lie shattered
And soon too the dying
We few who still cling to life
Stumble forth into the tides.

Our strength has left our bodies
As life seeps from our wounds
I welcome the cold darkness
The warm embrace of ice.