Let them walk without a name
As they define a distant age;
Let their actions show their fame
Founded on sharp deceit and rage,
Ignoring any faith or troth,
From the contrivance of a sage.
And the unexpected oath
Trailed a kingdom made of blood
Compensated by its growth.
A growth that barely passed the bud
Contained and tainted from its birth,
Until its final fall to mud.
Ambition through the early earth
To outlive the ageless yew
Hurtled swiftly into dearth.
Venom replaced its morning dew
As they pressed the helpless churl,
Indifferent to what they slew.
Titled cronies, baron, earl
And prince comprised of stone
Glossy, hard; garnet, pearl.
And, inheriting his bone
With a will to bend and break,
One came to take the rampant throne.
A coronation and a wake,
A celebration in the silt
Of myth around a mythic lake.
Castles and little kingdoms built
To leave the quiet people awed,
And all complicit in the guilt.
The acquisition of a sword,
The tramp of shepherds and of sheep,
Routes to place and claim a lord.
Better devised by dream and sleep
Than cruel prompting of a goad;
Awake, both beasts and people weep.
The rulers whose pretended load
Called for their choristers to sing
And sent their armies down a road
Of ambition, which will bring
Their world to pomp and strife and war,
To say that one of them is king.
Yet waves still beat upon the shore;
The hills are harder still to climb;
And nothing known respects the law.
The lands remain with certain grime
Hid by a less than perfect cloak
Eroding every space and time.
Even the sureness of the oak
Is threatened, losing perfect health,
The axe performs the deadly stroke;
And worse is done by silent stealth.
Surely the realm is in a trance
Pursuing fantasies of wealth,
Trained by the tripping steps of dance
Presenting ritual to gild the scene
Playing with death by spear and lance.
Nothing is right, and none are clean.
The rooks desert the fallen elm.
The magic traps a tragic queen.
So who is at the kingly helm?
Who steers? And who will set the sail
In that unruled, uncaptained realm?
In wild lands the wild gale
Blows in every driven hour,
Leaving the boldest, strongest, frail;
And limiting the assumed power
Holding men by night and day
To the tallest, safest tower
From which the brave but foolish stray
To fatal screes of tor and fell
Where nature kills, as armies slay;
And greets its victims with no bell,
Nor separates the wrong and right,
Nor yet allows a healing spell.
In this vast transforming blight
The story maker will be glad
To pen his own imagined knight.
To build a tragedy, a sad
And iron outcome, tired and bleak,
Undefended, metal clad.
This is the last and highest peak.
Later the happiness will fade.
And less resourceful toilers seek
With nothing more than hopeful blade,
Or yet the cunning of the fox,
Or the inspiration of a maid,
Or stubbornness of mule or ox;
All this to help ignore their fear
Searching among the endless rocks,
The plains and woodland dry and drear,
The lost, ignored unfertile field.
Nothing will help, not shining spear,
Nor any weapon that they wield.
Around them anything might prowl
Unstopped by armour, speed, or shield.
A figure shrouded in a cowl
Presages doom amid the damp
Helped by the hooting of an owl.
The darkness overwhelms the lamp;
Disguises the last friendly course
Leading to any home or camp;
Outreaches the heroic force
That might defy the rain and hail;
Defeats the great and warlike horse;
Proves the futility of mail;
Loses the soft attendant squire;
And makes the errand's adept quail.
The light is not a warming fire,
But heat intensifying rust,
And lures them each towards the mire.
And when at last their hope is dust,
There is a kind of final dawn,
A rumour eaten with a crust,
That somewhere different hopes are born:
Another story in a book,
Another herald's puzzled horn,
Another glimpse, another look,
But with a very different word
Across a cold unsparkling brook,
Without a welcome singing bird,
Without a hint of final rest.
And are these changes really heard?
Is there a hero truly blest
Not wasting skills to slaughter grouse?
Is there a proper righteous quest
When bravery is just a mouse
Too silly to imagine dread?
Is it not best to keep in house
And only eat the healthy bread,
And only breathe the healthy air,
Keeping adventure in the head,
Climbing just the wooden stair,
Questing, if ever, with a pen
Sitting, not ruling, on a chair?
And what lies out beyond the glen,
Gleaming and inspiring greed?
Just the reflection of the fen.
Yes, they could cast a gathered seed
Avoiding stone and rock and sand,
And hope it wasn't merely weed.
But this was not a farming band;
They looked for an uneaten prize
Tracing a maze beyond the land
That seemed so useless to their eyes.
Ignored the shepherd's helpful dog
And all the promptings of the wise.
So, led by phantoms to a bog
And hunting with the baying hound
They see no further than the fog.
That covers all their unseen ground
From out of which they claim to earn
A reputation and a sound
Of fame that everyone will learn
Sung by a far more famous bard.
But the great old bards were stern
And made the route for knowledge hard,
Not to be granted for a knife,
Nor for employment as a guard
In times of danger or of strife,
At the slight risk of early death.
Their song concerns a real life
And still conveys imagined breath.