A Dream

In a dream I stood atop,

The place from whence the cliff did drop,

I sat atop a blackened peak,

Because of things that I did seek

Before me yawned a great abyss,

Oh, what evil had led to this?

Why could I not have led a life,

All filled with good and not with strife?

At brink of chasm’s edge I stood,

Like statuette of stone or wood,

And set my heart at last to leap,

The fruits of many wrongs to reap

From cavern parts,

And darkened hearts,

Now came a beast,

On souls to feast

Its cunning words,

Like song of birds,

Like poisoned blooms,

All bringing doom

I knew that I in such a state,

Could scarce deserve a brighter fate,

And so prepared I for the fall,

Completely in Serpent’s enthrall,

Yet as my demise closer crept,

I thought on past misdeeds and wept,

And as my eyes shed tears like rain,

They seemed at last to see again

And high above I spied a light,

A mountain not pure black but white,

And at the very peak I saw,

Deliv’rance from the Serpent’s maw

The mountain’s steep and rocky slopes,

Were spanned by neither stairs nor ropes,

Yet still I started my ascent,

For on success my heart was bent

Far below the snake now raged,

And war upon my climb it waged,

But when it saw those efforts fail,

It ceased to rage, it ceased to rail

And now it turned to cunning ways,

Witnessing to my dark days,

And then on rocky mountain steep,

I ceased my climb to sit and weep

The Serpent’s words they pierced my heart,

Each past misdeed now like a dart,

And I then slid down mountainside,

Borne upon my past deeds' tide

And there I teetered on the brink,

Not yet so far as yet to sink,

And so my deeds took life and rose,

They towered high a Wolf of woes

Yet as I stood about to die,

And into the abyss then fly,

An Albatross all snowy white,

Gave then to me the means to fight

It dropped into my shaking grip,

A sword as keen as North wind’s tip,

A blade that shone with raid’yant light,

A sword with which the Wolf to smite

The Hound of woes shrank from the light,

It recognized its vanquished might,

It sunk down into the abyss,

Rather than stay and battle this

And with my enemies at bay,

I saw no need there then to stay,

And so I set off for the top,

Determined not from thence to drop