Halt, imperial galleys! Restrain your mighty rudders!
Walk with silent tread
I am officiating a proud Requiem in the chill of the night
Upon these sacred waters.
There at the bottom, where seashells fall into the tired grip of sleep
And peat falls upon the dead algae,
Lay graves of the brave, lay brother to brother
Prometheuses of Hope, Apostles of Pain.
Do you not feel how the sea calms,
That it may not trouble the fallen troop's eternal rest?
From the deep abyss peaceful slumber ebbs,
And tired flight of the moonbeam walks.
This is a temple of secret, and a graveyard of sorrow
For the great dead, endless as our mind.
Silent as midnight upon southern islands,
Dark as a conscience, cold and despairing.
Do you not feel from azure depths,
That piety grows spilled atop these waters
And the air is filled with curious gentleness?
It is the great soul of the fallen, roaming.
Halt, imperial galleys! Before the tomb my brothers
Shroud your trumpets in black.
Let your liveried sentries chant the holy dirge
Here, where waves embrace!
For the centuries will pass, like white foam
That crosses the sea and dies without trace,
And a new and great age will come,
And make a splendid home upon a pile of graves.
But this graveyard, where lays buried
The terrible, secret epic,
Will cradle a fairytale for the ages
Where the spirit will seek out its coryphaeuses.
Buried are here garlands of days past
And the fleeting joy of an entire nation,
And so this cemetery lies in the shadow of the waves
Between the bosom of the earth and the celestial vault.
Halt, imperial galleys! Extinguish your torches,
And draw your oars to rest,
And when I complete my Requiem, steal away into the dark of the night
Piously and inaudibly.
For I wish for the eternal silence to rule
And for the dead to hear the noise of the battle,
And hear their own blood boiling
In their children, cheering in glory.
For there, far away, the battlefield burns
With the same blood that lies buried here:
Here above the father, peace reigns,
There above the son flies a victor's banner.
So I want peace, to officate my Requiem
Without words, without tears and quiet sighs,
To merge scent of incense, and the breath of dust,
With the pounding echo of distant battledrums.
Halt, imperial galleys! In knowing respect
Glide with silent thread.
I officiate a Requiem, unlike any other,
Upon these sacred waters!
