The druidic priestess
haunts my visions of the night
like yonder succubus
a terrifying delight!
The once and future Queen
preceded Arthur of old
visiting my dreams
and causing outward cold.
By inner warmth subdued
I fall to her as dead,
my love for her so crude
no words of mine are said.
With long lost whisperings
she speaks a female’s words,
necromancer’s tidings—
the dead’s unsevered cords:
“I have heard what they say
their knowledge is for sure.
They speak not of today,
but of the future’s store.
This prophecy is first:
You will have your desire
when the timing seems worst,
soon after the pyre
built for one who was first.”
Her painted face frightens;
ready to fight and die.
Her Celtic beauty heightens
the emerald of her eye.
Yes, her Pictish forebears
were melded with the Scots,
From which comes reddish hair:
curly ringlets of locks.
Once more she speaks to me
divulging once again,
a certain prophecy.
And now it must be said,
as I sleep upon my bed,
She glides across the room,
sending me certain doom.
Time and time this occurs
embracing with her arms,
that double axe of hers,
those bewildering charms!
And so in tight embrace
she whispers yet softly,
the wisdom of her race.
“This prophecy is second:
When you think you have it
it will yet be stolen
you must not forget
how you acquired it. Amen”
With this she flies away,
unable to be held
by any human sway.
Tomorrow will be another day
And, of course, another night.
