The Ballad of Severus Snape

What shape of man is it that holds a flame

Once the fire that gave it spark long ago

Now ashes makes, and holds still tight the blame

For actions that caused forgotten blow?

What shape of man is it will risk it all

In face of certain madness, take the leap

That leads quite gladly to his own last fall –

Just for eyes that appear close to those which sleep?

What form of man can firm receive blind hate

And swear a troth to evil's hands, and know

That all is done just as a kind of bait

That ends with his own self laid ever low?

What form, indeed, can take the very man

Who lives a lie with no regard to life,

With knowledge firm that all of this will damn

His own self, for love he could not call wife?

What form, what kind of man indeed is this

Who will destroy an oldest friend for good,

Who throws his own corpse into the abyss

Just to save spawn of thing he never would?

This man takes neither well known form nor shape

That is known through all the learned magic books

Nor nothing that can be recognised by looks

But his own: for his is Severus Snape.