Author's Note: Hello, fellow Shakespeare fans, whom I ought to have met by now and haven't! Anyway, this here is a poem (obviously), based loosely off of A Midsummer Night's Dream insofar as I envisioned a rather dark and twisted Puck to be my knavish narrator.
Disclaimer: I own nothing that even remotely resembles anything penned by a balding chap affectionately deemed Bill Shakes...well, that's a lie. I don't own A Midsummer Night's Dream, though.
The Elder Call
Gather, glorious fellows all:
This is the night of the Elder Call.
Down beneath the oaks we fall,
Our envenom'd hearts set light with gall.
Down, down beneath the oaks all sorrows stall,
For my most bitter practice makes merry place for all.
All sprites we be, of glen and tree,
Of burning woad and delightful trickery.
You human-folk abroad- O, how strange you be:
How boorish, brutish, foolish you be-!
Yet still you deem our way villainy?
Art thou yet wise? Shall I satisfy thee?
Here, alack! the skeptic comes forth.
Welcome good sir; come nearer, nearer to me-
I'll show thee such wonder as thou'st never seen!
Ah, but I see thou lookest pale.
No need, tender friend, for such wide-eyed fears;
I'll set all right ere dawn's masts o'er black horizons sail.
Come! pass the goblet round,
tear good fortune down,
and let thy Heaven and Earth and all thy Hells,
Burn, burn to the desiccated ground!
We'll come upon some holy mound, and
Burn it, burn it to the ground!
What, dost thou shake at that?
Fear not, fear not for thy human God;
I daresay He'll be safe enough.
But this mound, this mound! I fear 'tisn't quite up to snuff.
What callst thee it, mine honest friend?
A temple? A shrine? A heathen's end?
Why, all? O, but this will never do!
No, it must away, and all saints' taint with't, too!
Nay, stay; do not intervene-
All things come to dust, friend; canst thou not see?
Soft you, but look upon my jubilant sprites at play,
As they rid their haven of yet another human stray!
Feel you our flame, as it devours peace of night?
Feel you its rich and primal might?
So much of glory can be found within, you see:
So much of beauty, terror, majesty!
Pray, let the winds of heat but caress thee, friend,
And let our cleansing flames all misgivings mend.
Weep not, weep not, poor wretched soul,
But stand amaz'd 'fore our fires of old!
Wilt thou not marvel? Wilt thou even rise?
Wilt thou not see the joy burning in our eyes?
What joy, what ecstasy we take from here!
Wilt thou then play the villain, to deprive us of what we hold so dear?
Nay. Nay, you cannot see-
You cannot, will not, dare not see!
Before me, but I have brought among us a sorry fool!
Blind! Deaf! Dumb! O man, how it pains me to look upon thee!
Skeptic? Ha! No, thou-rt not so great as that!
Thou'rt but a worm at my feet- but a sniveling, lowly rat!
Arise, arise, thou wretched thing:
Thou rotted, hell-spawned, damned thing!
For thy transgressions, thou'rt pressed to make
Due recompense- nay, payment, for my kin to take.
But meet their eyes, and witness what love they have for thee;
They do but wish to set thee free!
I'll have thy heart, and wretched flesh.
And thine eyes, too, that bid us desist.
Thy viper's eyes, that yet entreat us to...what?
Stop? Spare thee? Dost thou think me so foolish as that?
Spare me thy cries of misery,
Or I'll have thy lips, of dripping treachery.
Hands, flesh, lips and heart:
Give them to me, O foolish man!
My kin upon thy body will attend,
To free it from its prison, and its misgivings mend.
I do think it but a simple price:
After all, 'tis I that must pay for thy hallow'd vice.
Gather, glorious fellows all,
This is the night of the Elder Call.
Come, feast upon this rotted meat,
Of fool of man who dared sully our retreat.
Hark, and let this be known unto you all:
Down beneath the oaks our kin reign over all.