With sudden fire my heart alights
And fills with ancient song
To hold so close to storied sights
It runs and leaps along

When shadowed musings enter me
Unbid, with ill intent
I pause and wonder what they see
In me that can be bent

And to those parts I turn my gaze
And build upon their bricks
So that the sickly shadow-rays
Can never fit betwixt

The horse hooves beating trouble me
As they come down the lane
Of mental pathways I can’t see
Amidst the foggy plain

I wonder what those drums portend
And when they’ll reach my sight
If they foretell my story’s end
Or tell of guiding light

When will the hoary shackles of
Life’s winter crack and fall?
When will I at last rise above
The muck that grounds us all?
When might the shadows of my thought
Recede as stars at dawn?
So that I’ll be that man I ought
To be, not one more pawn?

It is with wariness I walk
Along this o’ergrown path
E’er watching in the shadows for
Vile biting, shadowed things