The Lady-Raven's Entrancement

By Kaihawk

A/N: Warning. If you don't want to read something that may potentially be very depressing or demoralizing, then don't read this poem. The ending is kind of sad. Really sad, actually. To me it is, anyway.

Also, there are occasional references to other things, like Edgar Allen Poe. And every four stanzas (I think), there'll be couplets that have their own rhyme, apart from the A-B pattern I've tried to create. Hopefully, they'll make some sense and keep the poem flowing.

In the house stood a man alone

With no true discernible face.

He walked to a chair, as if blown

By winter wind of bitter taste.

With the minutes, his eyelids closed

As he began to lose himself.

And before the pale, full moon rose,

Into subconscious his mind delved.

Upon the first twilight hour

Visions dearth left him undisturbed.

But his dreams would then gain power

And too soon would he be perturbed.

Plain scenes his mind began to grip,

Merely looking at mirror glass.

But looming shapes started to slip

For his reflection would not last.

Though imagination did run dry,

Fancies would be filled by a lie.

The liquid clear turned into blue

And there produced a mirror's swirl.

For a light figure then came true;

His eyes went rapt, watching a girl.

A face and body came to shape

And flaxen skin came into view.

Her black hair went behind her nape

With sad, blue eyes of striking hue.

Silver clouds outside a window

Began to rain soft flurries then.

The sea beyond covered in snow;

The woman began a lament.

She started in a melody,

With flowing notes she did impart.

Dreary sorrow the song did bleed;

The mourning hymn had pierced his heart.

As angel's harp fastens its bind

To truth the man is rendered blind.

The woman then began to fade,

She had left fast like Apollo.

But the man's eyes pursued the maid;

Into glass he stepped and followed.

Suddenly, he was in a field

Of lofty stalks and seed-filled mounds.

But then the sunlight did reveal

The moon-pale face that made the sounds.

He dashed straight through the spindly stems,

The black haired angel he still pursued.

And though he glimpsed her white gown's hems,

She seemed to vanish out of view.

As stalks slowly grew into trees,

A forest the man had breached through.

By the thick branches came a breeze

With saccharine sounds amid yew.

To the dove's song he plays the knave;

For to angel he is enslaved.

The day quickly grew into dark

As the man wandered for the song.

But he heard no sign of the lark;

The lady seemed forever gone.

He fell to his knees, in despair

That he lost sight of his maiden.

He tried to see her pale skin fair;

Saw in sky just a raven.

But the raven began to sing

In that equal, alluring song.

The man recognized the sweet ring;

To his lady's tone, it belonged.

So thus he ran to see her still,

The raven that flew to unknown.

His heart melody did fulfill

And on her wings the pale moon shone.

Reminded of Poe's immortal verse,

Thoughts but of the lady did disperse.

The black-green forest then did end

As he came into wet, cold flakes.

The gray, murky clouds seemed to send

A freezing blizzard in winter's wake.

But all the ice the man ignored,

After the raven he still chased.

Then she did land to the floor

And turned around to show her face.

For suddenly, she was no bird;

She had come into her true form.

Her beauty blazed bright beyond words

Despite the harsh, surrounding storm.

Her azure eyes did pierce his own

And caused the man to nearly faint.

She then sang in that dulcet tone;

The frosty air her song did paint.

Curious how such a fragile doe

Can overshadow the vast snow.

The angel then began to glide

Across the ice-swathed tundra plains.

The mortal followed with swift stride

As the harsh gales blew untamed.

He trailed her past a house alone

That strangely he seemed to perceive.

But the manor he did condone,

Of its borders the man took leave.

For he was still trying to catch

That so elusive angel light.

From the land the storm clouds detached

Exposing the dark, star-filled night.

And then the angel did not drift;

She had stopped at the black sea deep.

The angel hung over a cliff

Beginning a slow, somber weep.

For when angels cry to the comets,

She finishes her music sonnet.

The lady descended to waters

As she left the steep overhang.

The man dismayed yet still sought her

While in the air deep silence rang.

He stood by the jagged cliff's verge

And through his mind ran his notions.

He looked where the sea and sky merge

Then cast his eyes on the ocean.

For that day of bleak December

Was familiar, it seemed to be.

But he still could not remember

That this dream was reality.

He pondered what should be his fate

And somewhere heard his lady's call.

The man chose to end the wait.

He breathed his last, and took the fall.