I sing a song of time gone by
When the woods were a better-known place.
You laughed and walked through grey-green glades
And heard the trees reply
With rustling branch and open leaves
Splayed to a vernal sky.

The rain ensorced the ground to bloom
With faery rings of new mushrooms,
And violets peeping through the gloom,
In circles off the path.

Brave I am, an errant knight
With bold and courtly banners.
I ride untouched through many lands
In times of many manners.

My shining sword, my  glinting helm
Are well and ready-made.
I plan to make a name for me,
My strength shall never fade.

O' Lancelot, O' Beowulf,
Know not to challenge me!
For I'm a knight of great renown,
Soon better known than thee.

Achilles-King, O' Saint Sir George,
Hear well my prowess cry!
For I am young and bold, my lord,
While you were doomed to die.

I ride with shield and ready sword
through deep enchanted glen
Or else I go, defiance bared,
Through dark and gloomsome fen.

Tonight, upon a happenstance,
I faced a dragon's fire.
I charged and bore my lance to him
And he gave me a pyre.

The beast swept down from mountains cold
Shimmering-red and brazenly bold
Belching out flame which was scarlet and gold,
When the dragon came down on the town.
No one knew what had awoken this ire
But they knew well enough from whence came the fire,
For soon all the world was a funeral pyre
Now ashes where once was a town.

The dragon's wings beat ******* high
A tumult whisking clouds from sky
As thunder pounds from fearsome wings
A lightning bolt does proudly spring.
In sullen peaks it passed me by,
Like light which so oft cracks the sky
And yearning seized me then to know,
This dragon pale as fallen snow
So on that cliff I stood repeating
A hope, a prayer to say a greeting,
Yelling, shouting, waving hands,
Hoping exit from this land
Of black decay and mould'ring rot
But the ivory drake did not,
And so I stood there, long repeating
A hope against a dragon's fleeting
Wings which bore him from my sight
With thunderous pounds of iresome might.
He flew with soaring wings a flash
Into the twilight dark at last
And as it vanished from my sight
Twilight turned to lonesome night
So I sat long upon the stones
Crying after friends long-flown
Hoping the dragon would return.
But knowing that I am alone.

I remember that she smiled, how she bit her lower lip,
How when she walked, her skirts would swirl,
'Cause of how she swung her hips,
She passed me on an evening
When the rain came pouring down
She bright, though soaked, and happy,
Skipping lightly through the crowd.

Her hair glinted in the headlights,
that were glaring in the rain.
I never got to meet her.
I never learned her name.

O have you seen Lord Tolgedaath
With helm of steel and silver-gray
He wandered lone through mighty hills
And kept the undead hordes at bay.
He swung his ax in fearsome arcs
He knocked their rotting heads
He walked alone, and lonesome caves
Were where he made his beds
Their cloying stench, their tattered flesh,
He tore with blade and brawn
But then the plague broke through his shield.
He never saw the dawn.

O have you seen Lost Tolgedaath
With helm of green and flesh of gray?
He wanders still through lonely hills.
Though never by the light of day.

Dustily mustily covered in mold
The chamber belies the treasure it holds
From mothers and brothers and fathers and more
Inside meager demeanor confides kingly hoards
Chess boards and old lords’ bright silver spoons
With hobgoblins lurking somewhere in the gloom
Stalking their prey for a meal they might slay
In this moldering attic well hid from day.