The blade held fast by stoic clutch of earth
Intended for a single man since birth:
Upon the hilt in celtic runes engraved
An epitaph for how the king be saved,
And since in canes below the lake was forged
The magic brand knew well which foes to scourge.
The king unsheathed his worth from holy stones
As all the boulders strewn are mother's bones,
And wielded it across the heaving lands
Until they'd all been conquered by his hands.
Say some the sword was loose by fleeting chance
Precise as judgement by a joust with lance,
Some other say that Merlin hexed the Lady's gift
Before embedding blade within the rift,
Yet druid told before to doom he strayed
That sole for Arthur was the weapon made.
Within the marrow-rock of endless time
The patient sword awaits Pendragon's climb,
Yet would the worth have found itself a hand
If kingly stranger gave the hilt command?
Or does the aether-steel unceasing sleep
Denied of dreams 'til safe in Arthur's keep?
Can worth that slumbers deep and makes men whole
Await arrival of a single soul?
These truths are lost, for Merlin scattered dust
That lets our minds remember what they must,
Yet after Arthur he returned the blade
And to its rest beneath the waters laid.