The Toller Of Gloamridge

#[INTRO] [solitary bell • contrabass drones • distant gale] Once... Across the high escarpments... Before remembrance acquired language... The iron tongue began its labour. #[VERSE I – DEEP GROWLS] Upon Gloamridge stood a weather-eaten campanile Half-consumed by lichen And centuries of unrelenting weather No pathway ascended its crags No livestock grazed its approaches No mapmaker committed its whereabouts to parchment Yet every inhabitant of the valley knew its voice A sonorous proclamation Rolling through ravines and heather Like judgement travelling upon the wind #[ASCENT] One peal For the shepherd One peal For the magistrate One peal For the infant in the cradle The bell displayed no favour #[CHORUS] Hear the brazen herald Calling through the barrows Across the furze and granite Beyond the sleeping tarns When the iron oracle awakens No mortal course may alter For the Toller of Gloamridge Has inscribed your final chapter #[VERSE II – GROWLS] Many sought the summit Armed with lanterns Charms Relics And scripture Yet the mountain proved capricious Trails folded back upon themselves Distances elongated unnaturally Compasses revolved without reason And the travellers returned diminished If they returned at all Their hair bleached pale Their speech reduced to murmurs Their gaze forever fixed upon distant horizons As though witnessing something unseen #[INTERLUDE] [female soprano • dulcimer • low choir] Among the elderfolk There persisted an account Whispered only during snowbound evenings That the keeper had never been born Nor fashioned Nor summoned But had always occupied the tower As frost occupies winter As mould occupies stone As silence occupies graves #[VERSE III – ABYSSAL GROWLS] Then came the Year of Hollow Harvests When rot infested every granary And a copper-coloured haze lingered over the valley For seven weeks The bell remained dormant The people rejoiced Believing the affliction ended Then on the eighth evening The campanile spoke Not once Not twice But thirteen times Each reverberation shaking mortar from walls Each proclamation scattering roosting crows Each resonance burrowing deeper into the marrow #[BLACKENED BREAKDOWN] I do not summon death I merely announce its arrival I do not govern endings I witness them Empires Dynasties Lineages Languages All eventually become sediment #[GRAND FINALE] And through the tempest came the final tolling Resounding across moorland and escarpment While every hearthfire flickered And every hound fell silent The valley listened The mountains listened Even the ancient stones seemed to listen As the brazen voice rolled outward Across centuries yet unborn Declaring what it had always declared That no monument endures No lineage persists No earthly endeavour escapes erosion #[EPILOGUE] [single bell] The campanile remains. The heather continues to grow around its foundations. And when the wind shifts from the northern reaches... The valley still listens. For the next toll.