Luyện nghe bài hát Still Life

(Hammill)

Citadel to a thousand voices, now

What have we
What we chosen to be?
Now, all history is reduced to the of
our
nothing can be the same:
now the are here.
At the time it seemed a course
to harness all the
of without the threat of death,
but we found that boredom and inertia
are not negative, but all the law we know,
and are will and words like survival.

at immunity from all age, all fear and
all end...
why do I
Our essence is
and all taste is now drained,
and though is maintained
it us sterile,
living through the of years,
a laugh as as any tear;
living, if you that all
that is breathing, eating, defecating,
screwing, drinking,
spewing, sleeping, sinking ever and down
and ultimately passing time
no longer has any meaning.

Take the threat of death and all you're
left is a round of make-believe.
Marshal every sullen breath and you're
ultimately bored by endless
it's the ring by which you hope to be

to the girl who will give you forever-
crazy, and plainly
that is not enough.

is the dullest and bluntest of pains,
such that my eyes never close feeling it

What abject despair an end
to all things of
If we gained, how do we now meet the

What have we bargained, and have we

What have we relinquished, even knowing it
was

What thoughts now of fast the line,
defying death and
we had is gone,
everything we laboured for and more
than earthly things the hollow ring
of false hope and deliverance.

But now the bed is made,
the dowry has paid:
the toothless, haggard of eternity
now me between the sheets
to couple her withered body - my wife.
forever,
forever,
hers
in life.