The Sleepwalkers
At night, this mindless army, ranks unbroken by dissent,Is moved into action and their pace does not relent.In step, with great precision, these dancers of the nightAdvance against the darkness - how implacable their might!Eyes undulled by moon, their arms and legs akimbo,They walk and live, hoping soon to surface from this limbo.Their minds, anticipating the dawn of the day,Shall never know what's waiting mere insight awayToo far, too soon.
Senses dimmed in semi-sentience, only wheeling through this plane,Only seeing fragmented images prematurely curtailed by the brain,But breathing, living, knowing in some measure at leastThe soul which roots the matter of both Beauty and the Beast.From what tooth or claw does murder spring,From what flesh and blood does passion?Both cut through the air with the pendulum's swingIn deadly but delicate fashion.And every range of feeling is there in the dreamAnd every logic's reeling in the force of the screamThe senses sting.And though I may be dreaming and reality stallsI only know the meaning of sight and that's allAnd that's nothing.
The columns of the night advance,Infectiously, their cryptic danceGathers converts to the fold -In time the whole raw world will pace these same stepsOn into the same bitter end.
Somnolent muster now the dancing deadForsake the shelter of their secure beds,Awaken to a slumber whose depths they dread,As if the ground they tread would give wayBeneath the solemn weight of their conception.I'd search the hidden corners of all this world,Make reason of the sensory whorlIf I only had time,But soon the dream is ended.
Tonight, before you lay down to the sweetness of your sleepDo you question your surrender to the drop from Lover's LeapOr does the anaesthetic darkness take hold on its very own?Does your body rise in service with not one dissenting groan?These waking dreams of life and deathIn the mirror are twisted and buckled,Lashes flicker, a catch of breath,Skin whitening at the knuckles.The army of sleepwalkers shake their limbs and are looseAnd though I am a talker, I can phrase no excuseNot to rise again.In the chorus of the night-time I belongAnd I, like you, must dance to that moonlight songAnd in the end I too must pay the cost of this life.If all is lost none is knownAnd how could we lose what we've never owned?Oh, I'd search out every knowledge that I could find,Unravel all the mysteries of mind,If I only had time,If I only had time,But soon my time is ended.