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.
