A Crimson Dawn Or An Overture To The Raven-feathered Queen Lyrics

A Crimson Dawn Or An Overture To The Raven-feathered Queen lyrics


The introduction (as included in the booklet):
The scenery of "A Crimson
Dawn" is a bloody battle area at early morning. The omnipresent colour of
red
indicates both aurora, and blood and fire. The Morrigan is the Celtic
goddess of war, death and rebirth, who
appears as an appalling raven when
like mad she rages over the battlefield. Her cries can be heard at
a
warrior's death.

I: (The harbinger Morrigan)

Blear with dew
came the morrow
And winds rustled aloud.
Down by the rill where purled
the flow
The Washer1 washed the shrouds
And Nemain2 sang of woe and
sorrow.

"O black-feathered Morrigan"

II: (O'er bleak winds of
death)

A raven, Morrigan yclept, loomed awaiting burial.
On wings
o'er rueful winds, she stalked along.

A storm-blast of blazonry chased
the sands
And left the drift seen afar.
A breeze brought the scattered
grains,
That flung 'gainst the dewy scars.

Her frenzied squawks
exhorted the ravage
And the hewing of sheen blades,
And blood suffused
the barren earth,
'Pon which the crimson dawn glowered.

A Crimson
Dawn Awakened!

III: (Hoarse cries and clanging steel)

The brash
and bray heartened the noble souls
To defy the singeing fervour of
battle.
The carmine sky was brimming with sore shrieks,
As they rose high
above the flourish of brazen trumpets.

IV: (The beacon
glare)

When, dark by smoke and red by fire,
Aurora had won the
day,
The sun, in beacon glare, rose higher
And sweltered drouthy
fey.

V: (The ascent of warlike fever)

The fervour seared the
sanguine plain,
And the sour scent of cold damp
Did linger no more.
Undaunted or felled,
Shrieks resounded to where their lot was
cast.

"O black-feathered Morrigan"

"Thrilled by rankling fury, as
I hearkened direful voices,
The red blaze of death aroused my vengeful
moods."

"The glorious grandeur of battle, at this blood-tinged
dawn,
Made boil my ebon ichor, glinstering as steel whirled."

The
carmine sky in ashen stains flecked
Brimmed with husky moans.
Thus the
sabre-rattling swoll
Into drear timbres of ire
(The empty words
sceptred).

VI: (On the brink of ruin)

"Wounds of savage
thrusts
Shifted me to the brink of ruin
And the grave burden
borne
Struggled tho' I strained life."

VII: (A draught of
immortality)

A raven, Morrigan yclept, loomed watching the
battlefield.
On wings o'er rueful winds, she stalked along.

"Thrilled
by rankling fury, as I hearkened direful voices,
The roan blaze of death
aroused my vengeful moods."

"In awe of ancestral victories won
I
unsheathed and brandished my sword
Once more. Dreadful countenances
fell
Until the baleful knell rang triste."

After the dismal rise of
the sullen sun,
Ravens reap the rich morning harvest,
As the drenched
earth is sated by thousands
And splendid glory has been gained.
The
ardent ashes that flare
Smoulder with more afterglow
Than a midsummer
fever would leave
And now the embers are fanned.

1. In full the
Washer at the Ford, has been told to wash the clothes of those warriors already
destined to
fall in battle. A warrior, who saw her washing his very own
blood-stained clothes, had seen the
prediction of his own death. 

2.
Nemain is one of the three forms attained by Morrigan. She is known a
scaremongerer for she sowed
panic among the warrior's wives.

I who
have stood dumb
when your betraying sisters,
cauled in tar,
wept by
the railings,
who would connive
in civilized outrage
yet understand
the exact
and tribal, intimate revenge.
(Seamus Heaney Punishment)