[Intro]
[Male Vocal]
[Low harmonium plays the broken leitmotif.]
One eye open. One eye gone.
Ash on the tongue of dawn.

[Verse 1]
[Male Vocal]
I gave an eye to the well's black glass,
I learned what roots remember and pass.
I hung where cold winds cut me raw,
I drank from the cut of rune and law.
I knew the wolf by the chain it chewed,
But not the twig that drank god-blood.

[Pre-Chorus]
[Male Vocal]
What is a king when the bright son dies?
What is a seer with ash in his eyes?
What are the runes when the wood stays dumb?
What is wisdom when grief has come?

[Chorus]
[Duet]
Odin cannot read the ash,
No rune will rise, no spell will last.
Odin cannot read the ash,
The future has become the past.
He named the wolf and measured the flood,
But not the twig that drank god-blood.

[Verse 2]
[Male Vocal]
Ravens returned with their feathers torn,
No answer carried, no comfort borne.
Frigg moved past me without a word,
Her silence sharper than any sword.
Höðr wept blind in a brother's stain,
Loki's footprint turned to rain.

[Pre-Chorus]
[Male Vocal]
I counted doom, but I missed the leaf,
I mastered names, but not my grief.
I owned the throne and lost the room,
A father crowned inside a tomb.

[Chorus]
[Duet]
Odin cannot read the ash,
No rune will rise, no spell will last.
Odin cannot read the ash,
The future has become the past.
He named the wolf and measured the flood,
But not the twig that drank god-blood.

[Instrumental Break]
[Slow guitar chords leave long gaps for harmonium and bowed lyre.]

[Bridge]
[Male Vocal]
Prophecy waits, but it also walks,
It eats from our plates, it hears our talks.
It does not roar when the walls first crack,
It comes as a twig that will not answer back.

[Build-up]
[Choir]
Ragnarök is not a distant horn.
It is a mother with no tears born.
It is a brother with empty hands.
It is gold turned black on burning sands.

[Final Chorus]
[Duet]
Odin cannot read the ash,
No rune will rise, no spell will last.
Odin cannot read the ash,
The future has become the past.
Odin cannot read the ash tonight,
And gods grow old without the light.

[Outro]
[Male Vocal]
[Soft Vocals]
One eye open. One eye gone.
Ash on the tongue of dawn.