A WARRIOR'S HYMNAL

An Anthology of Claymore-inspired Poetry

.

.

.

"All a poet can do today is warn" - Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)

INTRODUCTION:

Before I started writing Claymore fanfiction, I started writing Claymore poetry, so technically these rather amateurish pieces were written when I was really interested in Claymore as a fandom. And because I started writing poetry before prose, I feel that I need to close an older chapter of my own life of writing by posting these up on a more public domain and (most of all) to contribute to the ever-expanding collection of Claymore fanfiction.

All these were originally posted from Dec 2007 to June 2008 on Valduran's Claymore Project's site & Animesuki Forums.

.

Lament for the Fall of Pieta

Context: Manga chapters 61, 66-67 (Post-Invasion of Pieta)

Inspiration: Rupert Brooke's Peace, Wilfred Owen's Anthem for Doomed Youth, Dylan Thomas' After the Funeral

Will not speak for us, O young men of Pieta?
Would you not honour our heads with thy failing lips?
From whence we saw thy faces, muted with dread at
the sight of us – now they curse us from the crypt.
Regard thou the stammering chords of thy tongues!
Scattered shards scrape remains of thy unfinished graves –
the perished whose souls sleep with the ruins –
and whose arms reach for us: to deliver Death's friendly embrace.

Will you not weep for us, O daughters of Pieta?
Would you purify our bodies with thy tears?
Till you have washed the wounds from our faces,
and sanctified our sacrifices in thy prayers.
Yet lower thy gaze still! Think not yet, to sweeten
our scars with mourning and bitter perfumes;
for we will not return to our rest this evening:
the beasts of this night have cast us into disrepute.

Fall, fall on us, O mountains of Alphonse!
Veil our eyes from those slain, those strewn as fowl;
silence the monstrous mockery of our foes: over our
dead and dying they scorn, slur, debase, defile.
Protect these humble headstones, O hills, lest stronger
storms bury under neglect these final deeds;
and when the winds do fail to blow,
may gentle seasons enshrine them into memory.

And echo our sorrow beyond these blood-drowned plains,
in the wake of thy shadow, O evening star.
For the acts of many, the lives of these few lights.
keep in thy bosom, O heavens – burn forever, faint stars this night.

NOTES: Edited on 28 Feb 2009.

When I was first in my early years, trying out writing, I seemed to develop an interest for the classical poetic forms of laments and requiems. So when I first posted this up on Animesuki, a lot of people called it "really depressing". I agree with them. But I felt that only a lament could be good enough for some of the more painful moments in Claymore. This poem helped me to get in the right mind to write Recursion.