Illusion / Masquerade
Ken Hensley
Album: Innocent Victim (1977)
(Full unedited version)
Originally recorded as one track, but released as separate tracks,
Illusion as album track and Masquerade as b-side on single Free Me

In a forest known as heartbreak
In a clearing in the wood
'Cross a pathway called confusion
Toward the garden of delight

You'll reach the river of desire
And meekly try and cross it
While the valley of love
Keeps avoiding you
Because it's only an illusion
Only an illusion

Upon the hill of high ideals
You begin to wonder if it's real
You are reaching sleep's oasis
You begin to wonder how you feel

But it happens so quickly
It doesn't fit into your scenes
Tossin' and turnin'
The star of so many scenes
It's only an illusion
It's only an illusion

***

A masquerade of dancing shadows
Appear before me
Through my mystic window
And soon to be seen
I saw presented
Became a vision that
I saw resented
I stood and watched
Its image changing
The unseen hand was rearranging
And all the time I wondered
How did it wind

Slowly, surely it unfolded
Its simple lines just as
A pole wind told it
A temporary revolution
My problems rose and fell
With a lapse of illusion
My mind was telling me, don't fight it
It's just a hazard in the night
Don't do those
Who've lost their way
It's a masquerade

Masquerade, it's a masquerade ...