Peter Hammill - Act 3. The Evil That Is Done Lyrics

[Montresor] So that is Usher's idea of a doctor!
That wretched mountebank can't help them.
I confront madness face to face!
And whatever it's cause, it lies within this place
I breathe an atmosphere of sorrow;
An alien despair makes my courage fail,
Like the collapse of an opium vision,
The hideous dropping of the veil
[Chorus] Tormented by a thousand doubts and fancies,
He will not sleep tonight.
Chilled by the gloom of his surroundings,
Mortal, half-dead mortar.

[Montresor / Chorus]

He will not sleep!
I see simple solutions
He will not sleep!
State them laud and clear,
But the echoes of the House He will not sleep!
Shout 'Unreason!'
The one thing that I fear.
The evil that is done
Cannot be undone.
The evil that will come
Cannot be prevented.
The evil that is done
Yet somehow I must help
These two tormented souls,
Cannot be undone.
For if I cannot, who will?
The evil that will come
These are the friends
I've loved so dearly...
Cannot be prevented
Leave!
No! What a monstrous thought!
Depart!
How could I even think of it!
Go!
Abandon those who have need of me!
Leave!
Oh, but what a temptation,
Depart!
To run like a thief in the night,
Go!
And yet now I cannot
Because it is too late Before it is too late,
I feel myself bound up in before you are bound up in
The web of fear and pain, the web of fear and pain,
The evil that surrounds me. the evil that surrounds you.
It cannot be undone.
It cannot be undone.
The evil that will come
Cannot be prevented.