A song by Seraphino Aurelius Belladonna
Beautiful Day
A sunlit murder ballad in which pastoral calm refuses to acknowledge the catastrophe unfolding beneath it.
- From the album
- As It Ought to Be
- Album sequence
- Track 4 of 14
- First released
- Running time
- 5:03
The matter at hand
What the song concerns
A serene day frames a tale of rejection, murder, poisoned food, and belated consequence. The setting remains almost offensively beautiful while human passion destroys everyone within it, allowing the refrain’s tranquility to grow darker with every return.
The contrast denies the violence any heroic grandeur. Nature neither approves nor intervenes; the sky stays blue, the birds continue, and the guilty man discovers too late that vengeance has already been served at his own table.
In his own estimation
Seraphino, upon its composition
Tragedy is often dressed in thunder, as though the heavens must rearrange themselves whenever mortals behave abominably. I have observed otherwise. Some of the darkest deeds occur beneath excellent weather, whilst birds continue their songs with a professionalism many performers would do well to imitate.
I therefore kept the day beautiful and the tale merciless. The calm refrain doth not soften the murder; it refuseth to flatter it with cosmic importance. The world remaineth lovely, the act remaineth vile, and consequence arriveth not as divine spectacle but as a meal already eaten.
“Too calm to doubt, too fair to fill.”
The complete text
Lyrics
She lay beside the quiet stream
On summer’s brightest day,
In white that caught the drifting light
And held the world at bay,
A basket set, the water slow—
A scene both calm and clear,
So gently formed it might persuade
All harm to disappear.
A perfect day, so soft, so still—
Too calm to doubt, too fair to fill,
Yet all that rests so bright above
May hide a hand… that’s not of love.
He watched her from the shaded bank
And dared not be perceived,
For sight would break the careful shape
Of what he had conceived,
He circled wide, then took his place
Behind an oaken frame,
A narrow smile across his lips—
Delighted by the game.
A gift lay hidden in his grasp,
He deemed it fit and fine—
A thing no heart could turn away
If offered at the time.
A perfect day, so soft, so still—
Too calm to doubt, too fair to fill,
Yet all that rests so bright above
May hide a hand… that’s not of love.
He stepped behind her, slow and sure,
The moment held in line—
But she turned round before he spoke
And met his gaze in kind.
“What brings thee here, uncalled, unasked,
When all was left behind?”
“I came,” said he, “to mend the past—
To ease a troubled mind.”
“A year has passed. There’s naught to say.
Be gone, and let it lie.”
“If I may not partake thy joy…
Then joy itself must die.”
The blow fell swift—the world unchanged,
The stream still moving slow,
He sat beside her, calm once more,
As though he’d naught to show.
He reached into her basket laid
And took what she had made,
Then paused—his breath caught in his chest—
A bitter scent pervade.
A perfect day, so soft, so still—
Too calm to doubt, too fair to fill,
Yet all that rests so bright above
May hide a hand… that’s not of love.
The taste turned sharp, the air grew thin—
The bitter trace laid bare,
He dropped the bread from trembling hand…
And found his ending there.
Further evidence