09 Feb Tale of the Frightful Pardon
If smoke arose and drift on draft afar,
And caught an evil wind, it might be landed
Among the purple stones and strangest star
In green and foggy country, ever-stranded.
An elder man was sitting, feeding birds
A mournful rainy day in winter-spring
When one of them began to speak in words,
A silver stork with ruddy head and wing.
Can thou betray thy nation’s king for me?
It spoke in matter-fact, undaunted tone;
The man was stunned at first and turned to see
The stork with gentle voice of flame and bone.
He asked, for Thou? my king is strong and wise,
A black dragon who breatheth poison-wisp,
He toke my parents far from homely ties
Broughteth us here, a teary vale of cold abyss.
The stork replied, I know thy troubled lot
Thy clan defecteth long ago from truer reign
To serveth dragons, then were trick’ry-got,
Enslaved and ate in mis’ry’s mist and rain.
The other birds had stopped in song and fled,
A gurgle soft was heard from river near,
The man was sad and sighed, indeed, he said,
The maze of rivers make escape a dream, I fear.
Above the mountains shied the sky its light,
The sun and moon were dark, forever waned,
The buzz of insects echoed evil flight;
The elder man, morose, expressed again,
The land-scape is a treach’rous mistress too,
To fall is certain death, the cliffs confound,
And demons lurk to torture victims who,
In private, faileth toil given ’round.
At once the stork had leaped upon a rock
And spoke, I AM the same and former King,
I came to bear away a little flock,
Who plucketh feather red atop my wing.
I sent a few birds in the past to sing,
Returned to me with word and now I came,
To say the day is coming quick I loathsome bring:
My armies, fit with arrows tinged with flame.
I come to punish traitors that profaned my Name,
To pile corpses, flesh of clans I ought to smite,
But weareth seal and suffer here the same,
Only worketh now for me, until I come in might.
To which the man responded, Savior! Save!
And reached to pluck a feather, which he did.
The stork continued, place it somewhere brave,
Thy king is known by standards nowhere-hid.
And watched the elder man sew at his breast.
It warned, if thou should keep it there with pride,
Mind my laws, as for when, in marching west,
I find a man with feather stuffed in vest,
Serving dragons, he will know my wrath,
So mind my laws and aim to serve thy best:
Twice-a-traitors twice shall die in my path.
The man, perturbed, worried enough to say,
Why hast Thou decided such a course for war?
The stork had stopped and turned to fly away.
Who art thou, O man? and it said no more.