Barren, the earth beckons
Sole pair of feet treading in heat.
Respite is seldom found while
Dread, exhaustion and sweat are cheap.
Burnt heather, ashes for a bed,
A pillow of dead feathers.
What else must he do to rest
Save be abed in dust, the traveller.

A fall, showering of the abandoned
Leaves, children so dried.
Lifelessly dropping, hopeless,
From clutches of the mother tree, pried.
Poison intoxicating, sapping nature
And all there is, it's fallen bounty.
To seek rest amidst the fallen
In itself is not devoid of folly.

Spines, shivering in deathly embrace
Of ice and of all that is cold.
Paralysis of a different nature
Body begging for warmth lost and old.
Silence embalms the wild
The tame are shown no mercy.
For who dare put his eyes to rest
They may never again open, never see.

A beautiful ethereal death awaits
Those lulled by false enchantments.
Songs and whispers of ivy and moss
Trap innocents at river embankments.
Fruit and flower, vines and willows,
Dryads of the woods, deepening magic.
Slumber means to never stand again,
Death in solemn sleep, of course is tragic.