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Blood & Roses (Ultreia)

from Peregrine Songs by Damien P Murphy

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about

'¡Ultreia!' meaning 'Onward!' is an ancient Galician exclamation of encouragement used between pilgrims (peregrinos) on the Camino de Santiago de Compostela. Inspired by the ostentatious altarpieces of Spanish churches and books on mediaeval pilgrimage.

Written and re-written in bits and pieces between August 2009 and August 2013.

lyrics

There’s not a soul for miles around
Though many have stopped here before –
A crumbling church far from any town,
Old pilgrim signs scratched above the door.

Is this where I can cast my sorrows?
Where do I go to shed my fears?
The steeple scrapes the vacant blue sky
To scatter prayers where no one hears.

I was taught that I must follow
The path that all before me took –
A road that’s paved with guilt and sorrow
And mapped out in the age-old book.

Were they granted their reward
Or did they suffer all in vain?
Did they find what they were seeking
Beneath a field of stars in Spain?

¡Buen viaje! ¡Buen camino!
I sing ‘¡Ultreia!’
To every desperate peregrino,
I sing ‘¡Ultreia!’

How we faltered at the altar,
Thomas, Simon Peter and me,
Trusting only what’s around us
And putting faith in what we see.

All there is is all around us.
Heaven is the pilgrim’s dream.
But dreams dissolve in reason’s dawn light
And what remains is what we see.

Gilt is flaking from the altar.
There’s only rotting wood beneath
And the mingled smell of blood and roses
Where saints and slayers bent their knees.

The dusty road beneath my feet
Is the dust to which we all return
When our pilgrimage is over,
When our walking days are done.

credits

from Peregrine Songs, released December 31, 2013
Words & music: DP Murphy

The phrase "mingled smell of blood and roses" is a variation of a line in The Waning of the Middle Ages (1924) by Johan Huizinga (via Edwin Mullins)

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Damien P Murphy Dublin, Ireland

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