"Dan Parkinson - Dragonlance Tales - Cataclysm" - читать интересную книгу автора (Parkinson Dan)

and addressed him as soldier
as fellow and brother:
SOONER OR LATER, SING YOU THIS,
BARD OR BARD'S APPRENTICE.
FOR THE VOICE OF THE HARPER
THE MUSICIAN, THE PIPER
SHALL NO LONGER BE HEARD
IN THE ARM OF CAERGOTH,
LONG KEPT FROM THE FIRE
 BY THE SONG OF A POET
WHO SAID SHE WAS BURNING ALREADY:
FOR A FRESH FABLED COUNTRY
IS THE NEST OF INVASIONS,
THE QUARRY OF CAVALRY,
RIPE FOR THE SWORD AND THE FIRE.
Orestes rode forth
and the captain continued,
turning his pale horse
as a star tumbled down
from the fixed dream of heaven:
FOR THE BARD'S SONG, THEY TELL ME,
IS A DISTANT BELIEF
IN THE SHAPE OF DISTANCE.
FOR CAERGOTH WAS BURNING
WHEN SHE SAID IN HER HEART,
'I AM QUEEN, NOT A WIDOW
AND SORROW IS FAR FROM ME,
ELUSIVE AS THOUGHT
OR THE CHANGES OF MEMORY.'
SOONER OR LATER, SING YOU THIS.
And he vanished in histories
of rumor and smoke,
and sooner or later,
a bard will sing this,
in beleaguered castles
abandoned to night
and the cough of the raven.
Sooner or later,
someone will sing
of Orestes the bard,
for some things the poet
brings forth and fashions,
and others the poet holds back:
for words and the silence
between them commingle,
defining each other
in spaces of holiness.
and through them the story
ascends and spirals,
descends on itself