The Tombs Of The Kings

The dust as light as fairy wings
soft against my feet
Blew across the barren land,
wilting in the heat.
And all around the silence lay,
Unbroken by the waves
Deathly quiet silence reined
upon the graves.
And in this country far away, still
ghostly spectres haunt me
A foreign country far away and
still the memories taunt me.

So quiet there amongst the dead, those
tombs below the ground
And the glittering sea bows silently
in reverence all around.
Below the sandy desert many
souls and sinners lie
In a graveyard claimed with a grandiose name,
not even the wind dares sigh.

In a foreign land so far away
in a graveyard by the sea
With naked feet in burning sun, dead
voices called to me.
In mausoleums underground the
slumb’ring spirits woke;
And in my head (or burning heat?) the
long-gone voices spoke.

I fled; I fled and I never looked back
at the valley in the sun
I fled, I fled and ran, till I was
safely gone.
And in the noise of the evening town
I pondered on the dead;
So high in life, so grand in death,
yet can still not rest their heads?

What do they dream? Why do they weep?
What do they say? Why don’t they sleep?
Nightmares haunt the graves disturbed
And spectres in the air, perturbed
Do wander in that dead unrest
That’s not for those whose lives are blessed;

And shall I go back, will I return
To a land of ghosts where the night sun burns?
Will I go back? One day I shall
When memory and intrigue call
To a graveyard of silence where
no bird sings
The valley of silence; the Tombs
of the Kings.