The Yeoman's Parable

Whilom through Turkey's intricate doors,

the Crusader's did battle with the Moors.

So long Templars rode under a Red Cross,

many lie beneath stones covered in moss.

Yet for God, Clement would not stop sending,

the Moors would not stop lives of men ending.

What a dreary scene it was in the camp,

with fog blowing, wind blowing, and tents damp.

The morale was struck dead by the Moor's lance,

they, so sad, assumed the execution stance.

For they were in need of great salvation,

such not seen since the fall of creation.

There guarding the camp was a ye'man poor,

who donned on a ship from England the oar.

He who gambled off his inheritance,

he who lost his father's benevolence,

he who though he would find in war a home,

he found himself perpetually 'lone.

It fell upon his shoulders to sound the horn,

when it was victory or one to mourn.

Outside the tent he stood alone one night,

contemplating whether to abscond or to fight.

He thought he could run, now, to the green hills,

back, for nostalgia yearned it, to his mills.

He had no money, nor street or roadway,

on which he was ready to travel for days.

Presently, he knew only these black woods,

The yeomen knew to escape, he could!

Maybe to die by thirst on a roadway,

was better than a lance and bloody ways.

The yeomen mused and forgot to watch,

He thought he spied in a tree a black blotch.

The blotch suddenly moved and was darkened,

should he act alone or issue harkens?

Lacking love for life, he went to follow,

He moved past the dirt where the horses wallow, 

and the ye'man entered the black forest,

suddenly his mind hazed with thoughts dishonest.

His vision became cloudy and it blurred,

his mind became full of thoughts so perverse.

A pain in the deep back of his head throbbed, 

as if by a hundred Moors he'd been robbed.

Through his blurred vision he saw a figure,

It was hooded and horr'bly disfigured.

The figure limped along with with back bent,

he, along the path, close and closer went.

The yeoman was on the ground in pain,

prone on the wet dirt he was out-right lain.

As the apparition drew in closer, 

the ground became more wet, vile and grosser.

In the ye'man's head screaming erupted, 

blasting through his skull and thoughts corrupted.

His head throbbed and beat as strikes on a drum,

"O no," he thought, "Satan, to me don't come."

Tears poured from his eyes and blood from his nose,

his head hit the ground, he fell to a doze.

But ever closer did the devil come, 

his intent was to steal the souls of some.

Through the damp forest of black willow trees,

did Sathanas all night and all day flee.

As the trees outside the clearing lay,

so did Satan draw near to his prey.

The brambles of the willows dripped water,

through a thick rolling fog did magic mutter.

For sundry minutes did Satan slouch near,

for there was no one the echo to hear.

His black cloaked dragged in the forest mire,

his left hand bore marks of incensed fire.

Incoherence streamed from his lisped mouth,

he was not a drop wet, though the ye'man doused.

He sought fields of skeletons and ravens,

though in his heart he was horr'bly craven.

he sought death in the land of the living,

For in his heart he forgot forgiving.

With a cold trembling heart ready to burst,

he approached, ready to yaf the worst.

He reached the cloak of the ye'man, 

and said, "You pathetic excuse for human men,

a lake of burning brimstone awaits you,

the devil and his kiss shall sedate you!"

A language esoteric came from that one,

so complex that not a mouth had it done.

He'd not ceased to make mumbles prosaic, 

the magic words issued from the Didact.

"St. Jude, leave me not succorless and scared,

for you, Lord," said the ye'man, "had me reared.

I turned away in the dead of the night,

then I turned away from Zion's great might."

The soil around began to bubble, 

the trees were charcoal and fir'y rubble.

The devil was taking him through raptures,

Him, he had so succorless and captured.

That's when two forces clashed: the night and day,

that's when the ye'man won the fight, he prayed.

The Sun, led by Apollo, did its course, 

its rays forced the devil feel remorse.

He fled back to the darkest of the caves,

to forever avoid the Sun's warm rays.

At the sight of the Good One he's craven,

no power at all to summon a raven.

Radix malorum est cupiditas

contra fabulam meam sic: finis

Reviews

[Sami Khalil]

A very interesting poem....Thank you for penning...:).......................