Mourning Tide

n 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