Arcturus
La masquerade infernale

01   Master of Disguise (06:43)

("No! this face is only a mask, a wicked ornament,
illuminated by an exquisite grimace,
Look and see, atrociously contorted,
The real head, and the sincere face
Turned back under the shadow of the face which lies"
Charles Baudelaire)

He is profanity in sanctity's guise
An alias assumed I do realize
In their eyes, his cause -
when enticing and cunning in impact
is still a criminal and evil act

So look for him vainly,
He, the incarnation of magickal nature
He turns unrecognizable even to the experienced eye

You obsessively pursue him
Failing to see, hat was why he came to be
one who annihilates with such impunity

He appears your friend, but
the Saint hides many Satans
He's contemptuous, you know
of your Godgiven stupidities
He calls you in question with
affected modesty and create
of you an object of derision

You think him to be pariah
whom company does exclude
But in the midst of all frenzy
He is - feasting in a transitory mood

Passion is a strict lord
He is also its humble slave
When bereft of common ways,
He strides before you on water
He makes clowns of kings,
charm the guests, rides the ball
Is the master of disguise

Prince of the thousandfold face
the charming jester's smile
which invites reason to demise
and imaginations rise
Inscrutable yes, venting his spleen
Somewhere night and day between
Is the master of disguise

02   Ad Astra (07:40)

03   The Chaos Path (05:33)

Await the coming storm. Behold the sign in the sun.
Chaos upon us spawn! The arrows of time pinpoints us all.
Oh, well the maddening laughter growing louder with the memories.
Atoms like incense rising, like a thousand candles all blown out
at once.
Fear tangled with despair.This ghastly symphony of malice breaks it.
The spirit sails out on waters. An intergalactic sea of sorrow.
Solemn oblivion with thee.

Ways of darkness.
The third eye reflects the images of vast reluctant pasts.
Ethereal eternity awaits the final act.
It crawls toward the altar destinied to collaps.
Tragic legend, eerie stratum.

Twisted, this mortal flesh evoked again, with echoes still haunting;
The curses chanting.
Embrace the outcast state of chaos. After all its unalterable.
Beweep this thought, then arise with wisdom,
Nowhen I hallow in the gateway of different plains.
Open your heart and let go. Oh Vanish. Divine infinity.

Ah, this wraith I am. So many aeons ago since.
Ah I suffer eternally. The inevitable did unfold.
Oh well, a collection of particles held together
by the force of a soul and its memory.
Be warned (you stand) on the edge of infinity;
Where coloured waves will lead the way into the void.
Fear tangled with despair. This ghastly symphony of malice.
Oh well the maddening laughter growing louder with memories now.
Atoms like incense thing.

Ways of darkness.
The third eye reflects the images of vast reluctant pasts.
Ethereal eternity awaits the final act.
You are drawn towards the altar destined to collaps.
Tragic legend, eerie stratum.

In between the arrows of time I suffer eternally.

04   La Masquerade Infernale (01:59)

Hear!
From this day forth
are the heights of Horeb broken
and the sea of sulphur-ice.

And blasphemy!
in heaven's chambers:
Souls had fled their halls
and closed was the book of life.
And behold!
The great, white throne:
black
with sacred blood

Our father -
Dead by his own hands:
an epitaph
worthy no king.

And so is everything
a nameless lie.
Who, my god,
am I?

Man knows me
as Lucifer, the serpent of old.
The wretched hold my banner high.
Your gift
- all life! -
I grant a grave
Yet I am not your death.

Come carry forth the crown
to your once held throne.
Here is where my suffering should cease
- but alas; I am crowned
in grief unheard of!

In this lone monarchy
- without a friend of foe -
I greet the mourning sun
with strife and a song:
Please speak my name!
And leave me not
in the dust of death.

I am weighed down
beneath the tragedy crown, -
nameless,
and alone,
a fatherless son.

05   Alone (04:42)

[Poem by Edgar Allan Poe]

From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were - I have not seen
As others saw - I could not bring
My passions from a common spring
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I lov'd, I lov'd alone
Then - in my childhood - in the dawn
Of a most stormy life - was drawn
From ev'ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain
From the sun that 'round me roll'd
In it's autumn tint of gold -
From the lighting in the sky
As it pass'd me flying by -
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that look the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.

06   The Throne of Tragedy (06:34)

[based on the poem "Tragediens Trone" by John Henrik Svaren]
[is translated by the undersigned, and hereby dedicated to Kristoffer Garm Rygg]

Hear!
From this day forth
are the heights of Horeb broken
and the sea of sulphur-ice.

And blasphemy!
in heaven's chambers:
Souls had fled their halls
and closed was the book of life.
And behold!
The great, white throne:
black
with sacred blood

Our father -
Dead by his own hands:
an epitaph
worthy no king.

And so is everything
a nameless lie.
Who, my god,
am I?

Man knows me
as Lucifer, the serpent of old.
The wretched hold my banner high.
Your gift
- all life! -
I grant a grave
Yet I am not your death.

Come carry forth the crown
to your once held throne.
Here is where my suffering should cease
- but alas; I am crowned
in grief unheard of!

In this lone monarchy
- without a friend of foe -
I greet the mourning sun
with strife and a song:
Please speak my name!
And leave me not
in the dust of death.

I am weighed down
beneath the tragedy crown, -
nameless,
and alone,
a fatherless son.

[JHS 1996]

07   Painting My Horror (05:59)

It was a dark night, I couldn't see;
And senses were unbound in ESP

When in dream awake,
I'd paint,
Subconcious, the expanse I saw

The portal to the minds eye, open!
- I contemplated
Who it was that pulled the strings

O those things I saw in dreadful masquerade
Of stark madness went merry round with my head

I passed out, embraced their world
Savoured the poetry of revolt -
Sheer elegy of menace

I have not been the same since,
I took on the profession of a devil
The world I see in grotesque light
Evil perform with the gestures of a clown

Pure I live in blasphemy
Mephisto I am hidden in Madonnas gown
From the code of common sense I'm free
To(o) bad you're not here to partake my strange horror

'Cause here is where or weys will part
I will not exchange their power,
spring of my suffering
I do not envy the conscience pure
of the blind man in his bliss world
I would not be devoid the fruit of guile

08   Of Nails and Sinners (06:06)

"I know that without me God cannot live a moment;
If I am destroyed He must give up the ghost."
[Angelus Silesius]

I beseech you, God to whom many sinners pray
From the depth of the dark abyss where my heart fell
Expelled I was from your tedious grace to the pits of hell
So can you please cease to deplore my opposite, nay only way
For aeons I descended down
Till I saw the dreadful truth
of which man wouldn't know
I, degraded bearer of thy sacred light
- to which I never again will bow
When I rise to avenge myself with darkness
The anger of the damned shall flow

I was cast out by the retinue of angels weak
Shone to the few who me would seek

A rebel I was, radiant my glow, afar,
My wisdom fathomed by the morningstar

And O you fools, in herdlike fight, stampede
And when creation falls, you must build anew,
With nails that sting My hands - They grow passionate on a lie.
But You know the veracious one was I