The Ivory Gate Of Dreams

(专辑： No Exit - 1988)

[I. Innocence]

[Instrumental]

[II. Cold Daze]

The coldness of confusion
Hangs in the morning air as
Brazen bells ring reality
To announce the conqueror dawn

Removed from nights fleeting trance
Plunged headlong into cold days
Where in a circle we wander
The barren wastes of our pasts.

[III. Daylight Dreamers]

Daylight dreamers awaken on
Deserts of desperation
Lonely lives learn to live on
Islands of isolation.
Surrounded by violent oceans
Of hate and hopeless sorrows
Daylight dreamers envision
Tranquil seas in safe tomorrows.

Dreaming through the darkened day
Along tempest torn strands
Desperately grasping the grains
Of hope that flit through our hands
As they fall we tighten our hold
While the waves claim the final few
Taken without ceremony
They drift out of view.

Washed away with the tides of time
Slipped through our fingers as dreams do.

[IV. Quietus]

From sleeping visions
Daily were torn
In waking hours
Hopes our forlorn.
Is all we do and all we dream
Doomed to drown in a hopeless stream?

Wishing life were made of lasting visions
In eternal sleep
And if that rest were filled with sorrow
Still we'd sleep.

In the madness of a silent eternity
We'd find solace in
False visions that protect us
From reality.

Enter ivory gates through midnight skies
Daylight dreamers in private parades
Perform before perpetual dawn
As dusk engulfs the gate of horn.

Ivory towers appear beyond the gate
Invisible fortresses of escape
Traversed by ramparts made of hopes and fears
Impervious to reality.

[V. Ivory Tower]

Behind sullen doors
Untouched within
Sale from summer storms
And winter winds
Relentless tempests
Can weaken walls
Towers falter when
Reality calls.

Untouchable by all without
Lost in the silken web youth may weave
Tangled threads seem a stronghold
But illusions can deceive
A cold daze plagues the air
Driven by aging winds
The walls give way to the rush
And let reality.

[VI. Whispers on the wind]

Misty morning on windswept plain
Embers of a fortress all that remain.

The seeds of life that burned within
Have flown like whispers on the wind.
From the sleepers world
I look toward darkening skies.
Through the violet haze of summer storms
The sun leaves tired eyes.

[VII. Acquiescence]

Betrayed by innocence
Deceived by delusions
Plagiarized promises
Pale into empty hopes.

Ivory towers bow down
In reverence to daylight
As dreamers awaken
In sleepers somber shade.

Ocean Waves shift leaving
Only memories.
Final traces of hope
Are swallowed in the deep.

Despair sends a certain calm
A vague sense of relief
Released from all our longings
Silently we'll sleep.

Hope leads to quiet desperation
When reality obscures the dream
Makes the mind a grave of memories
That wander like the lonely breeze
Whose whispers echo through ruins rust
Of towers torn and dreams turned to dust.

[VIII. Retrospect]

[Instrumental]