The Toast of Despair Video (MV)

We have cried - and the gods are silent
We have trusted - and been betrayed
We have loved - and the fruit was ashes
We have given - the gift was weighed

We know that the heavens are empty
That friendship and love are names
That truth is an ashen cinder
The end of life's burnt-out flames

Vainly and long we have waited
Through the night of the human roar
For a single song on the harp of Hope
Or a ray from a day-lit shore

Songs aye come floating, marvelous sweet
And bow-dyed flashes gleam
But the sweets are Lies, and the weary feet
Run after a marsh-light beam

In the hour of our need the song departs
And the sea-moans of sorrow swell
The siren mocks with a gurgling laugh
That is drowned in the deep death-knell

The light we chased with our stumbling feet
As the goals of happier years
Swings high and low and vanishes
The bow-dyes were of our tears

God is a lie, and Faith is a lie
And a tenfold lie is Love
Life is a problem without a why
And never a thing to prove

It adds, and subtracts, and multiplies
And divides without aim or end
Its answers all false, though false-named true
Wife, husband, lover, friend

We know it now, and we care no more
What matters life or death
We tiny insects emerge from earth
Suffer, and yield our breath

Like ants we crawl on our brief sand-hill
Dreaming of "mighty things"
Lo, they crunch, like shells in the ocean's wrath
In the rush of Time's awful wings

The sun smiles gold, and the plants white
And a billion stars smile, still
Yet, fierce as we, each wheels toward earth
And cannot stay his will

Ye build, ye fools, your mighty things
That time shall set at naught
Grow warm with the song the sweet Lie sings
And the false bow your tears have wrought

For us, a truce to Gods, loves, and hopes
And a pledge to fire and wave
A swifter whirl to the dance of death
And a loud huzza for the Grave