poem: the spell

 this one asked for the ballad's style

The Spell

Beneath the light of Spring’s new moon

Which sparkled on the burn

He laid on stone the carven rune

To make her long and yearn.

She rode out on a summer’s day

Drawn by the unknown spell

To ride forth into danger’s way

To seek the faerie well.

Dismounted from her milk-white steed

Dressed in a gown of green

She saw the runes and gave no heed

To where she should have been.

Her maidens all with sleep were filled

They sank down on the grass

Lulled by the babbling of the rill

Which from the fae well passed

She wandered in a dreaming haze

Which led her through the wood

It was an hour, or several days

When in her path he stood.

His smile was cruel and triumph-filled

Yet she went to his arms

All knowledge of her true life killed

By runic faerie charms

She dwelled with him a faery year

A year and then a day

She bore his son, and learned to fear

The games he liked to play.

And when her babe was fully weaned

His smile was cruel and fell;

He dressed her in her gown of greed

And led her to the well.

She searched but could not find the way

Back to her lord and son

She wept, and swore that he would pay

When all knew what he’d done.

But when she left that eldritch wood

Her gown was rags and torn

Her father’s house no longer stood

Her spirits were forlorn

For where her father’s fair demesne

Had once been green and fair

Towering monstrosities now were seen

No farmlands left were there.

*   *   * 

They took her to the hospital;

They bade her tell her tale

They locked her in the mental ward

As all the treatments failed.