The Restorer

[Verse 1]
Pinene and spirits. Murky twilight falls.
The cotton rustles on the craquelure.
Beneath the varnish dimmed by old halls,
A hidden face was kept, forgotten here.

[Verse 2]
Down from the cloth, austere and hollow-eyed,
A holy hermit in his cowl would stare:
A captive to his vows, of life denied,
Dry, rigid canon and a righteous prayer.

[Verse 3]
Yet drop by drop, the solvent softly flows,
Dissolving crust by crust the aged decay;
The numb and heavy torpor slowly goes —
All fears and alien touches wash away.

[Verse 4]
I cleanse the soot of cloister tapers past,
Buried within each fissure of the paint...
A burden falls from off my soul at last:
The canvas sheds the grim mask of the saint!

[Guitar Interlude]
[Fluid, soaring arpeggios, tempo slightly increases, bright classical run]

[Verse 5]
O, Quattrocento! What enchanted grace!
From clumsy chains and mortifying cold,
A slender silhouette begins to trace,
A circlet woven with a thread of gold!

[Verse 6]
No grief, no cowl, no cross of grim decree —
Beneath that veil of dark, ascetic cant,
The pristine cloth reveals for all to see
A lovely maiden of the Florentine land!

[Verse 7]
A roguish curl has slipped upon her nape,
A pagan mischief glimmers in her eyes;
Her lips breathe warm and soft, in gentle shape,
As if the hands of time turned back the skies.

[Verse 8]
What trembling zealot, haunted in his night,
Besmeared her beauty with fanatical despair?
Or did the painter, fearing judgment's might,
Protect her, whispering that "Faith" was there?..

[Outro]
Dawn breaks! A sunbeam glides across the scene,
Five hundred years have vanished in the sun:
I washed the lie, unbound the captive spring —
And this fair woman breathed, the spell undone!

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