The Eve Of The War
Wild Lyrics

At midnight, on the 12th of August, a huge mass of luminous gas erupted from Mars and sped towards Earth.
During the night of August 12th, a large cloud of glowing gas appeared on Mars and traveled towards Earth at high speeds.

Across two hundred million miles of void, invisibly hurtling towards us, came the first of the missiles that were to bring so much calamity to Earth.
Traversing the empty space between the two planets, the initial missile that brought destruction to Earth began its high-velocity approach of 200 million miles with stealth.

As I watched, there was another jet of gas. It was another missile, starting on its way.
Observing the sky in anxiety, one could see another incendiary missile being propelled towards Earth by Mars.

And that's how it was for the next ten nights. A flare, spurting out from Mars. Bright green, drawing a green mist behind it; a beautiful, but somehow disturbing sight.
Over the next ten nights, the people of Earth could observe a flaring green light emerging from Mars along with a green vapor trail that was both mesmerizing and eerie at the same time.

Ogilby, the astronomer, assured me we were in no danger. He was convinced there could be no living thing on that remote, forbidding planet.
The astronomer, Ogilby, remained confident that life could not exist on the inhospitable Mars, prompting him to believe that Earth was not in danger.

The chances of anything coming from Mars Are a million to one, he said (ahh, ahh) The chances of anything coming from Mars Are a million to one, but still, they come
Despite the astronomer's optimism, the likelihood of an attack from Mars was infinitesimal, at least to him, although such an event still came to pass.

Then came the night the first missile approached Earth. It was thought to be an ordinary falling star, but next day there was a huge crater in the middle of the common, and Ogilby came to examine what lay there.
The night the initial missile arrived, people mistook it for a meteor, but the next day they realized that it had created a massive crater in the middle of the land. Ogilby went to check it out.

A cylinder, thirty yards across, glowing hot, with faint sounds of movement coming from within. Suddenly the top began moving: rotating, unscrewing; and Ogilby feared there was a man inside trying to escape. He rushed to the cylinder but the intense heat stopped him before he could burn himself on the metal.
Inside the crater, there was a thirty-yard cylinder, radiating heat and making faint sounds. Suddenly, the top of the cylinder started moving and twisting, prompting fears that someone inside was trying to get out. When Ogilby tried to investigate, the heat proved too intense for him.