Oh Muse, please hear me now. Forgive those times I've sinned,

Against you, love, and art - and thus myself and man.

To you I am calling only at this late hour,

With the better part of my text now set out,

For in my foolish pride I thought that I solely

Was above the need for your revered guidance.

So I acted alone, casting off all advice - 

Ignoring the words of wise teachers and friends

And the still-wiser words you whispered in my ear.

Humbled, I invoke you with head bowed and knee bent

(For if I surpass you, it's in hubris alone)

And request your favor as a tool of my art.

Antichrist has taken hold of me like a storm.

I live to do nothing but tell you its story:

The ending of an age, the crumbling of the roads,

And those cloaked ones who looked out on the ancient night

To see an infinite garden of forking paths,

Criss-crossing vast landscapes of terror and beauty.

Antichrist is the hour of dissolute chaos.

It's a convocation of night's bastard children:

Brave royals, calm and flowing, impassioned wanderers:

Those who carry fire across the night and run,

Shivering and shirtless, through dew-soaked midnight fields.

In time, this dark revolt may be its world's last hope.

Oh Muse, I stood before you completely humbled:

I knew not what to offer - for I feared that you would

Depart if I were too free with my love, my love.

But, alone, my power left me cage'd and poor. 

Knelt and head-bowed I asked, "What can I give to you?"

You raised me up, speaking simply: "I want nothing."

Well then. Let us begin.

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