I'd heard an interpretation before of this song as being about a dead lover, the first verse taking place in a church, at her funeral (the "tree where the doves go to die" is a crucifix, and the "piece torn from the morning" is her body lying in a cold casket, on display in a "gallery of frost"). The interpreter gave the second verse as him stealing a moment alone, thinking how much he wants her with him again, right here, "in a chair with a dead magazine" in some reception or waiting room, or in one of the church's lonely hallways. As for "the cave at the tip of the lily," I see him looking at funeral flowers and thinking the hollow made by a lily's curved petal looks like a beautiful place to hide away with her. She might have been a singer (leaving her adoring fans "sentenced to death by the blues"), but that would be such a literal interpretation compared to the rest of the song, I'm easily willing to surrender that part. -_^
The bit of my own that I have to add is that, after having this song looping in my head for two days, the still-mysterious last verse kind of slapped me upside the head. If all of the above is where you go with the song's meaning, I'm pretty sure that in the last verse, the singer drowns himself.
He says he will dance with his (dead!) lover wearing a disguise, like at a masquerade ball--and he's going as a river. He'll "bury his soul" with "the moss", and "yield to the flood of your beauty." And to speak of laying down or giving up one's cross is sometimes used to mean giving up the world's difficulties and ugliness for the rest at the end of life. Then to top it all off, she will "carry [him] down"? I dunno, guys, I'm pretty convinced! XD
Looking at all that, it makes me think the "waltz" he's offering her throughout is the broken (probably drunken--"breath of brandy and death") remainder of his life now that she's gone.
I'd heard an interpretation before of this song as being about a dead lover, the first verse taking place in a church, at her funeral (the "tree where the doves go to die" is a crucifix, and the "piece torn from the morning" is her body lying in a cold casket, on display in a "gallery of frost"). The interpreter gave the second verse as him stealing a moment alone, thinking how much he wants her with him again, right here, "in a chair with a dead magazine" in some reception or waiting room, or in one of the church's lonely hallways. As for "the cave at the tip of the lily," I see him looking at funeral flowers and thinking the hollow made by a lily's curved petal looks like a beautiful place to hide away with her. She might have been a singer (leaving her adoring fans "sentenced to death by the blues"), but that would be such a literal interpretation compared to the rest of the song, I'm easily willing to surrender that part. -_^
The bit of my own that I have to add is that, after having this song looping in my head for two days, the still-mysterious last verse kind of slapped me upside the head. If all of the above is where you go with the song's meaning, I'm pretty sure that in the last verse, the singer drowns himself.
He says he will dance with his (dead!) lover wearing a disguise, like at a masquerade ball--and he's going as a river. He'll "bury his soul" with "the moss", and "yield to the flood of your beauty." And to speak of laying down or giving up one's cross is sometimes used to mean giving up the world's difficulties and ugliness for the rest at the end of life. Then to top it all off, she will "carry [him] down"? I dunno, guys, I'm pretty convinced! XD
Looking at all that, it makes me think the "waltz" he's offering her throughout is the broken (probably drunken--"breath of brandy and death") remainder of his life now that she's gone.