OwlsNestBard

Name:
Location: Shire of Trisel, Trimaris

I am in my late forties, a proud husband, father, and a bard. I am a book pedlar by trade and a bookman by vocation. I am a romantic, a realist, and a Believer. I like a good joke, and a bad one even better. I admire all ladies for the innate beauty that is in each one, but my heart is sworn to the fair and gentle Lady Lorelei, who has consented to share my life and my name.

Thursday, February 09, 2012

Danse Macabre

The music is a lively step,
Though in a minor key;
Makes toes to tap and hands to clap
In gay festivity;
Invites the hearers all to dance,
The tune so fast it flies:
But look not at the piper who
Has holes instead of eyes.

Popes and kings and commoners
Are joined in merriment.
Mothers with their babes in arms
Are equally content.
Farmers, merchants, townsmen
Find the music opportune.
Ignore the fleshless fingers
That are tapping out the tune.

From palace down to marketplace
The melody is played.
From hovels and cathedrals
It is equally assayed.
It trills along the harbor,
It rings on castle stones.
None can escape the melody
That echos from the bones.

And when at last the dancers
Gaze upon their troubador,
The music ends and they forget
What they were dancing for.
All memories of daylight fail,
There's none can hope to save
Them all from their descent into
The silence of the grave.

No more for them the joys of life,
The final judgment waits,
Marshalled by Eternity
To their eternal fates.
While in the world they left behind,
As when the world was new,
Death takes up his instrument...

And starts the dance anew.