Dream Forest

St. George Fighting the Dragon (1605–07) by Peter Paul Rubens

Often I travel a forest

Perfumed with the mist of sea.

From her shadows she whispers

Stories gone and again to be.

Tales of treasures lost or buried

Now belonging to her bosom,

Of knights with armor scourged

By a thousand battles won.

The voice of thunder harkens

The turning of an age

And from the ancient underwood

Evil takes the center stage.

A serpent of the night

Darkens the starry sky.

Beneath, I loose my scabbard

And steel my heart to die.

Tongues to scorch the sun

Lick black my heraldic cross.

One scream of the maiden fair

Turns hence its neck across.

But before I take its head

The forest is rent beneath my feet.

I am consumed by the black void

And wake in a white sheet.