Casual beginnings lead down bare paths,
filled with dark shades and shadows.
We gather flowers in unbound silence
for the grim phantasm sweeping through this day.
Wild, unholy joy gilds the morning gleam.
Where lies, where goes the honor caught in blood?

Casual beginnings lead to dark tasks.
We are trapped by reddened iron strands
to follow an ordained, unflowered path.
Youth wraps its manhood in flags unfurled,
lost in the jangle of the pressing night,
we weep the dark sigh and mourn the undone.

Casual beginnings lead down dark paths.
Overarching pride, self clouded vision
foreshadows a brooding, bloody harvest
as the specter of mourning lies in wait.
War's fancy haunts our attentive trance while,
in anger, the flower of spring is lost.