[Verse 1]
Once upon a starless winter
I was watching embers fall
Every echo in the hallway
Spoke your name along the wall
There your picture on the mantle
Candle clawing through the gloom
Every shadow bent and whispered
“Will she ever leave this room?”
[Pre-Chorus]
I pressed my pulse against the silence
Felt it push my faith aside
Somewhere deep behind the darkness
Something opened
Stepped inside
[Chorus]
“Nevermore
Nevermore”
Cried the raven at my door
Tearing through the threads that tied me
To the life I had before
“Nevermore
Nevermore”
Every feather
Every word
Like a verdict
Like a branding
In the marrow of my world
[Verse 2]
On the bust above the doorway
There it settled
Cold and still
Black as ink across a death note
Darker yet than any will
“How?” I asked it. “How to wake her?
How to burn this grief away?”
But its eyes were empty altars
Where my questions went astray
[Pre-Chorus]
So I fed it vows and poems
Every promise
Every lie
Still it answered every pleading
With that single
Shrunken cry
[Chorus]
“Nevermore
Nevermore”
Cried the raven at my door
Every syllable a dagger
Every echo like a war
“Nevermore
Nevermore”
As my hope was dragged outside
Through the snow and through the silence
Where the living dare not ride
[Bridge]
[Violin and acoustic guitar enter
Storm building beneath]
Shall I follow where you’re sleeping?
Shall I drown inside your name?
Is this love or only hunger
For a fire
For a flame? (yeah)
In the cage of my remembering
Feathers fall like shards of glass
I am tied to every moment
You were here
And then you passed
[Chorus]
“Nevermore
Nevermore”
Cried the raven at my door (at my door)
“Let her rest beneath the thunder
Let her sail from off this shore”
“Nevermore
Nevermore”
Still I clutch what I adore
Yet the beating wings above me
Drive me out to live once more
[Outro]
[Tempo drops
Violin and choir swell]
So I rise
Though broken-hearted
Leave your key upon the floor
In the rafters
Wings are waiting
Softly breathing that dark lore
On the bust above the doorway
It will watch me cross the floor
And its eyes will burn like cinders
As it murmurs
“Nevermore”