STILL FALLS THE RAIN
Black Sabbath - 1970


"Still falls the rain,the veils of darkness shroud
the blackened trees,
which, contorted by some unseen violence,shed
their tired leaves,
and bend their boughs toward a gray earth of
severed bird wings.
Among the grasses, poppies bleed before a
gesticulating death,
and young rabbits, born dead in traps,stand
motionless,
as though guarding the silence that surrounds and
threatens to engulf
all those that would listen. Mute birds, tired of
repeating yesterdays
terrors,huddle together in the recesses of dark corners,
heads turned from the dead, black swan
that floats upturned in a small pool in the hollow.
There emerges from this pool a faint,sensual mist,that traces
its way upwards to caress the feet of the
headless martyr's statuewhose only achievement was to die
too soon,and who couldn't wait to loose.
The cataract of darkness forms fully,the long black night begins,
yet still by the lake a young girlwaits.
Unseeing she believes herself unseen,
she smiles faintly at the distant tolling bell,
and the still falling rain."