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Song Title

Location

Five Hymns

The childhood's element
sea of the barks
of leaf and dust mote
it goes where it will,
abides unexpectedly
and a dozen days pass
before we remember
how it bathes us, sustains us
and halfway forgotten
imagines the life of our days.

One time by the river
when the quietest element
moved on the waters
fragmenting reflection
and spangling the country with light,
and once on a road
where an afternoon storm
beckoned and threatened
the host of the air,
I have stood, oh my brothers,
and marveled the wind at its passing,
for each day is the wake of the wind,
the rich expectancy
of water and leaf,
the engendering flight of seed and samara;
eight countries of peace
depart in a tumult of sails,
and the king of the wind
is the king of the innocent heart.

Hymn to Earth
Of rock and earth, of magma and cold shale
Build our belief. The hammer of the god
A truth forged in the absence of starlight.
And here amid the sediment of years
In darkness covering darkness, where the eye
Mines for the ore of mystery, the earth
Lies rich with promise and the fire of days.

Thorbardin and Thoradin, half an age
Has covered you, and half a dozen wars.
Here, in a thousand seasons,
Breath transforms to rock, to immaculate crystal,
Bone to onyx, the blood's loud current stilled
In the white stalactite. Here all things lie down
In darkness, and a vein of ore recalls
The lost light of our dreaming days.
And this is what we dream, what we remember:
In the black husks of carbon, we awake,
Devolving centuries, transforming fire,
The blue millennial diamond in our hearts.

So insubstantial are the bonds of earth
That stone is breath and pyrite is desire,
The light of gemstones is a rain of stars,
And what is gracious, what is misconstrued
As old illusion in the hooded night
Is the true vein that binds the bone to breathing,
Binds stone to the gods' air, and in the vein
The gold, glimpsed like a prophecy of light.

If we forget
the sorcerous tower
the black harp of the river,

If we forget you, let memory lose
its imagined meaning
in a net of leaves,

Let star and cenotaph
cool uninhabited
and a thousand years
unpeople the country of sleep.

Earth and water, fire and air
are the seeds of the world,
memory its soil
which we do not forget.

In the days of waiting,
when the seed in secret
takes root and grows,
the promise of light,
the nurture of air and water
find union in memory,
Silvanost, lest we forget.

And a thousand years
and the ruin of empires
are survived by the air
and the earth and the light
and water and memory,
memory binding together
the last breath of empire
with the advent of breath.

Oh, if we forget you
let mountain and river
let red moon and summer
still in our heartbeats,
let the dream of the elves
fragment and diminish,
and perpetual winter
nest in the skeletal trees.

Haiku

Swift wing, feathered white ;
Talons rake with arcane wrath,
Griffin, mage, are one.

Glitter, ancient gold;
Flaming breath and wyrm's fey mist,
Giantbane, behold!

Tail, strong, black-steel clad
Ancient tears on vengeful blade,
Mourn, 0 warrior's son.

Elven Haiku
Citadel of rock;
Clouds gather and thunder roars,
Death upon the winds.

Fortress, flying rock;
Dragons scream and circle high,
Shadows on the land.

Eyes of evil fire;
Forsaken soul, honor lost,
Death and nightmares charge.

Ancient earthborne souls;
Children of the ageless world,
Sleep, 0 ancient wyrms.

Mereklar Cat Legend

Elven Love Song

Look, Look how moonlight doth caress
Your skin, soft, pale, and warm,
And summons moonstone essenses
that glint along your arm,
That glint along your arm.

Gold darts through your tresses fair
Like amber caught and caged.
And in your pointed shadowed ear
Are amethysts arrayed,
Are amethysts arrayed.

Silver sparks your lapis eye
with ardent passion's gleam
Kindling fire that doth deny
Platonic love serene,
Platonic love serene.

Look how moonlight doth caress
Your elegant, lithe form,
Graceful maid who summons forth
My love's sweet painful storm,
My love's sweet painful storm.

Hail Takhisis

Hail to the Queen of Darkness,
Majesty of the Abyss.
Hail Takhisis, allegiance to thee
(Hail Takhisis, hail Takhisis, allegiance to thee, Takhisis)
I swear eternally.

Hail to the Blood, Oath, and Code
Framing the Vision foretold.
Hail Takhisis, allegiance to thee
(Hail Takhisis, hail Takhisis, allegiance to thee, Takhisis)
I swear eternally.

Hail to the Order of Knights:
Vigilance, fealty, and might.
Hail Takhisis, allegiance to thee
(Hail Takhisis, hail Takhisis, allegiance to thee, Takhisis)
I swear eternally.

Service to Thee

Hush Baby Sleep

Canticle of the Dragon
Part II

Hear the sage as his song descends
like heaven's rain or tears,
and washes the years, the dust of many stories
from the High Tale of the Dragonlance.
For in ages deep, past memory and word,
in the first blush of the world
when the three moons rose from the lap of the forest,
dragons, terrible and great,
made war on this world of Krynn.

Yet out of the darkness of dragons,
out of our cries for 1ight
in the blank face of the black moon soaring,
a banked light flared in Solamnia,
a knight of truth and of power,
who called down the gods themselves
and forged the mighty Dragonlance, piercing the soul
of dragonkind, driving the shade of their wings
from the brightening shores of Krynn.

Thus Huma, Knight of Solamnia, Lightbringer, First Lancer,
followed his light to the foot of the Khalkist Mountains,
to the stone feet of the gods,
to the crouched silence of their temple.
He called down the Lancemakers, he took on
their unspeakable power to crush the unspeakable evil,
to thrust the coiling darkness
back down the tunnel of the dragon's throat.

Paladine, the Great God of Good, shone at the side of Huma,
strengthening the lance of his strong right arm,
and Huma, ablaze in a thousand moons,
banished the Queen of Darkness,
banished the swarm of her shrieking hosts
back to the senseless kingdom of death, where their curses
swooped upon nothing and nothing
deep below the brightening land.

Thus ended in thunder the Age of Dreams
and began the Age of Might,
when Istar, kingdom of light and truth, arose in the east,
where minarets of white and gold
spired to the sun and to the sun's glory,
announcing the passing of evil,
and Istar, who mothered and cradled the long summers of good,
shone like a meteor
in the white skies of the just.

Then came the time of dark and death
as the gods turned from the world.
A mountain of fire crashed like a comet through Istar,
the city split like a skull in the flames,
mountains burst from once-fertile valleys,
seas poured into the graves of mountains,
the deserts sighed on abandoned floors of the seas,
the highways of Krynn erupted
and became the paths of the dead.

Thus began the Age of Despair.
The roads were tangled.
The winds and the sandstorms dwelt in the husks of cities,
The plains and mountains became our home.
As the old gods lost their power,
we called to the blank sky
into the cold, dividing gray to the ears of new gods.
The sky is calm, silent, unmoving.
We had yet to hear their answer.

Then to the east, to the Sunken City
scarred in its loss of blue light,
came the Heroes, the Innfellows, heirs to the burdens,
out of their tunnels and their arching forests,
out of the lowness of plains, the lowness
of huts in the valleys,
the stunned farms under the warlords and darkness.
They came serving the light,
the covered flames of healing and grace.

From there, pursued by the armies,
the cold and glittering legions, they came
bearing the staff to the arms of the shattered city,
where below the weeds and the birdcall,
below the vallenwood, below forever,
below the riding darkness itself,
a hole in the darkness called to the source of light,
drawing a11 light to the core of light,
to the first fullness of its godly dazzle.

Goldmoon's Song

The grasslands are endless,
And summer sings on,
And Goldmoon the princess
Loves a poor man''s son.

Her father the chieftain
Makes long roads between them;
The grasslands are endless, and summer sings on.

The grasslands are waving,
The sky's rim is gray,
The chieftain sends Riverwind
East and away,

To search for strong magic
At the lip of the morning,
The grasslands are waving, the sky's rim is gray.

0 Riverwind, where have you gone?
0 Riverwind, autumn comes on.
I sit by the river
And look to the sunrise,
But the sun rises over the mountains alone.

The grasslands are fading,
The summer wind dies,
He comes back, the darkness
Of stones in his eyes.

He carries a blue staff
As bright as a glacier;
The grasslands are fading, the summer wind dies.

The grasslands are fragile,
As yellow as f1ame ,
The chieftain makes mockery
Of Riverwind's claim.

He orders the people
To stone the young warrior:
The grasslands are fragile, as yellow as flame.

The grassland has faded,
And autumn is here.
The girl joins her lover,
The stones whistle near,

The staff flares in blue light
And both of them vanish;
The grasslands are faded, and autumn is here

Wedding Song

Goldmoon:
Wars have settled on the North
and dragons ride the skies,
"Now is the time for wisdom,"
say the wise and nearly wise.
"Here in the heart of battle,
the time to be brave is at hand.
Now most things are larger than
the promise of woman to man."

But you and I, through burning plains,
through darkness of the earth,
affirm this world, its people,
the heavens that gave them birth,
the breath that passes between us,
this altar where we stand,
all those things made larger by
the promise of woman to man.

Riverwind:
Now in the belly of winter,
when ground and sky are gray,
here in the heart of sleeping snow,
now is the time to say
yes to the sprouting vallenwood
in the green countryside,
for these things are far larger than
a man's word to his bride.

Through these promises we keep,
forged in the yawning night,
proved in the presence of heroes
and the prospect of spring light,
the children will see moons and stars
where now the dragons ride,
and humble things made larger by
a man's word to his bride.

Wedding Song
A Reprise

Kender Trailsong

And yes, our lighthouse shines for her,
And yes, our shores are warm;
We steer her into harbor-
Any port in a storm.

The sailors stand upon the docks,
The sailors stand in line,
As thirsty as a dwarf for gold
Or centaurs for cheap wine.

For all the sailors love her,
And flock to where she's moored,
Each man hoping that he might
Go down, all hands on board.

Kender Mourning Song

Always before, you could explain
The turning darkness of the earth,
And how that dark embraced the rain,
And gave the ferns and flowers birth.

Now winter is my memory,
Now autumn, now the summer light-
So every spring from now will be
Another season into night.

Elvenhome

The Sun
The splendid eye
Of all our heavens
Dives from the day,

And leaves
The dozing sky,
Spangled with fireflies,
Deepening in gray.

Now Sleep,
Our oldest friend,
Lulls in the trees
And calls
Us in.

The Leaves
Give off cold fire,
They blaze into ash
At the end of the year.

And birds
Coast on the winds,
And wheel to the North
When Autumn ends.

The day grows dark,
The seasons bare,
But we

Await the sun's
Green fire upon
The trees.

The wind
Dives through the days
By seasons, by moon
Great kingdoms arise.

The breath
Of firefly, of bird,
Of trees, of mankind
Fades in a word.

Now Sleep,
Our oldest friend,
Lulls in the trees
And calls
Us in.

The Age,
The thousand lives
Of men and their stories
Go to their graves.

But We,
The people long
In poem and g1ory
Fade from the song.

Song of the Undead

And love, what heat your -frail skin hides,
As pure as salt, as sweet as death,
And in the dark the red moon rides
The foxfire of your breath.

Dwarven Marching Song

Under the hills the heart of the axe
Arises from cinders the still core of the fire,
Heated and hammered the handle an afterthought,
For the hills are forging the first breath of war.
The soldier's heart sires and brothers
The battlefield.
Come back in glory
Or on your shield.

Out of the mountains in the midst of the air,
The axes are dreaming dreaming of rock,
Of metal alive through the ages of ore,
Stone on metal metal on stone.
The soldier's heart contains and dreams
The battlefield.
Come back in glory
Or on your shield.

Fled of iron imagined from the vein,
Green of brass green of copper
Sparked in the fire the forge of the world, Consuming in its dream as it dives into bone.
The soldier's heart lies down, completes
The battlefield.
Come back in glory
Or on your shield.

Solamnic Death Chant

Return this man to Huma's breast:
Let him be lost in sunlight,
In the chorus of air where breath is translated;
At the sky's border receive him.

Beyond the wild, impartial skies
Have you set your lodgings,
In cantonments of stars, where the sword aspires
In an arc of yearning, where we join in singing.

Grant to him a warrior's rest.
Above our singing, above song itself,
May the ages of peace converge in a day,
May he dwell in the heart of Paladine.

And set the last spark of his eyes
In a fixed and holy place
Above words and the borrowed land too loved
As we recount the ages.

Free from the smothering clouds of war
As he once rose in infancy,
The long world possible and bright before him,
Lord Huma, deliver him.

Upon the torches of stars
was mapped the immaculate glory of childhood;
From that wronged and nestling country,
Lord Huma, deliver him.

Let the last surge of his breath
Perpetuate wine, the attar of flowers;
From the vanguard of love, the last to surrender,
Lord Huma, deliver him.

Take refuge in the cradling air
From the heart of the sword descending,
From the weight of battle on battle;
Lord Huma, deliver him.

Above the dreams of ravens where
His dreams first tried a rest beyond changing,
From the yearning for war and the war''s ending,
Lord Huma, deliver him.

Only the hawk remembers death
In a late country; from the dusk,
From the fade of the senses, we are thankful that you,
Lord Huma, deliver him.

Then let his shade to Huma rise
Out of the body of death, of the husk unraveling;
From the lodging of mind upon nothing, we are thankful that you,
Lord Huma, deliver him.

Beyond the wild, impartial skies
Have you set your lodgings,
In cantonments of stars, where the sword aspires
In an arc of yearning, where we join in singing.

Return this man to Huma's breast
Beyond the wild, impartial skies;
Grant to him a warrior's rest
And set the last spark of his eyes
Free from the smothering clouds of wars
Upon the torches of the stars.
Let the last surge of his breath
Take refuge in the cradling air
Above the dreams of ravens where
Only the hawk remembers death.
Then let his shade to Huma rise
Beyond the wild, impartial skies.

Raistlin's Farewell

Caramon, the gods have tricked the world
In absences, in gifts, and all of us
Are housed within their cruelties. The wit
That was our heritage, they lodged in me,
Enough to see all differences; the light
In Tika"s eye when she looks elsewhere,
The tremble in Laurana's voice when she
Speaks to Tanis, and the graceful sweep
Of Goldmoon's hair at Riverwind''s approach.
They look at me, and even with your mind
I could discern the difference. Here I sit,
A body frail as bird bones.
In return
The gods teach us compassion, teach us mercy,
That compensation. Sometimes they succeed,
For I have felt the hot spit of injustice
Turn through those too weak to fight their brothers
For sustenance or love, and in that feeling
The pain lulled and diminished to a glow,
I pitied as you pitied, and in that
Rose above the weakest of the litter.

You, my brother, in your thoughtless grace,
That special world in which the sword arm spins
The wild arc of ambition and the eye
Gives flawless guidance to the flawless hand,
You cannot follow me, cannot observe
The landscape of cracked mirrors in the soul,
The aching hollowness in sleight of hand.

And yet you love me, simple as the rush
And balance of our blindly mingled blood,
Or as a hot sword arching through the snow;

It is beyond explaining, and the words
Will make you stumble. Tanis is your friend,
My little orphan, and he will explain
Those things he glimpses in the shadow's path,
For he knew Kitiara and the shine
Of the dark moon upon her darkest hair,
And yet he cannot threaten, for the night
Breathes in a moist wind on my waiting face.

Song of the Ice Reaver

Seven they were from the hot lands
(I am the one who brought them back)
Four swordsmen sworn in the North
The elf-woman Laurana
The dwarf from the floes of stone
The kender small-boned as a hawk.
Riding three blades they came to the tunnel
To the throat of the only castle.

Down among Thanoi the old guardians
where their swordsmen carved hot air
Finding tendon finding bone
As the tunnels melted red.
Down upon minotaur upon ice bear
And the swords whistled again
Bright on the corner of madness
The tunnel knee-high in arms
In claws in unspeakable things
As the swordsmen descended
Bright stream freezing behind them.

And Aran the first to break the circle
Hot wind at the throat of Feal-thas
Brought down and unraveled
In the reel of the hunt perfected.
Brian the next when the sword of the wolf lord
Sent him seeking the warm lands.
All stood frozen in the wheel of razors
All stood frozen except for Laurana.
Blind in a hot light flashing the crown of the mind
Where death melts in a diving sun
She takes up the Ice Reaver
And over the boil of wolves over the slaughter
Bearing a blade of ice bearing darkness
She opened the throat of the wolf lord
And the wolves fell silent as the head collapsed.

The rest is short in the telling.
Destroying the eggs the violent get of the dragons
A tunnel of scales and ordure
Followed into the terrible larder
Followed further followed to treasure.
There the orb danced blue danced white
Swelled like a heart in its endless beating
(They let me hold it I brought them back).
Out from the tunnel blood on blood under the ice
Bearing their own incredible burden
The young knights silent and tattered
They came five now only
The kender last small pockets bulging.
I am Raggart I am telling you this.
I am the one who brought them back.

The Knight of the Black Rose

Then we shall make you remember,
shall make you live again
through the long denial of body

For you were first in the light's hollow,
expanding like a stain, a cancer

For you were the shark in the slowed water
beginning to move

For you were the notched head of a snake,
sensing forever warmth and form

For you were inexplicable death in the crib,
the long house in betrayal

And you were more terrible than this
in a loud alley of visions,
for you passed through unharmed, unchanging

As the women screamed, unraveling silence,
halving the door of the world,
bringing forth monsters

As the world split, wanting to swallow you back
willing to give up everything
to lose you in darkness.

You passed through these unharmed, unchanging,
but now you see them
strung on our words-on your own conceiving
as you pass from night-to awareness of night
to know that hatred is the calm of philosophers
that its price is forever
that it draws you through meteors
through winter's transfixion
through the blasted rose
through the sharks' water
through the black compression of oceans
through rock-through magma
to yourself-to an abscess of nothing
that you will recognize as nothing
that you will know is coming again and again
under the same rules.

Kitiara, of all the Days

How Quiet is the Midnight
Lord Soth's Song

How quiet is the midnight, love,
How warm the winds where the ravens fly,
Where all the changing moonlight, love,
Pales in your fading eye.

And love, what heat your frail skin hides,
As pure as salt, as sweet as death,
And in the dark the red moon rides
The foxfire of your breath.

Song of the Nine Heroes

One from a garden of stone arising,
From dwarf-halls, from weather and wisdom,
Where the heart and mind ride unquestioned
In the untapped vein of the hand.
In his fathering arms, the spirit gathered.
Nine they were, under the three moons,
Under the autumn twilight:
As the world declined, they arose
Into the heart of the story.

One from a haven of breezes descending,
Light in the handling air,
To the waving meadows, the kender's country,
Where the grain out of smallness arises itself
To grow green and golden and green again.
Nine they were, under the three moons,
Under the autumn twilight:
As the world declined, they arose
Into the heart of the story.

The next from the plains, the long land's keeping,
Nurtured in distance, horizons of nothing.
Bearing a blue crystal staff she came, and a burden
Of mercy and light converged in her hand:
Bearing the wounds of the world, she came.
Nine they were, under the three moons,
Under the autumn twilight:
As the world declined, they arose
Into the heart of the story.

The next from the plains, in the moon's shadow,
Through custom, through ritual, trailing the moon
Where her phases, her wax and her wane, controlled
The tide of his blood, and his warrior's hand
Ascended through hierarchies of space into light.
Nine they were, under the three moons,
Under the autumn twilight:
As the world declined, they arose
Into the heart of the story.

One within absences, known by departures,
The dark swordswoman at the heart of the fire:
Her glories the space between words,
The cradlesong recollected in age,
Recalled at the edge of awakening and thought.
Nine they were, under the three moons,
Under the autumn twilight:
As the world declined, they arose
Into the heart of the story.

The next in a simple light a brother to darkness,
Letting the sword hand try all subleties,
Even the intricate webs of the heart. His thoughts
Are pools disrupted in changing wind-
He cannot see their bottom.
Nine they were, under the three moons,
Under the autumn twilight:
As the world declined, they arose
Into the heart of the story.

The next the leader, half-elven, betrayed
As the twining blood pulls asunder the land,
The forests, the worlds of elves and men.
Called into bravery, but fearing for love,
And fearing that, called into both, he does nothing.
Nine they were, under the three moons,
Under the autumn twilight:
As the world declined, they arose
Into the heart of the story.

The last from darkness, breathing the night
Where the abstract stars hide a nest of words,
Where the body endures the wound of numbers,
Surrendered to knowledge, until, unable to bless,
His blessing falls on the low, the benighted.
Nine they were, under the three moons,
Under the autumn twilight:
As the world declined, they arose
Into the heart of the story.

Joined by others they were in the telling:
A graceless girl, graced beyond the graces;
A princess of seeds and saplings, called to the forest;
An ancient weaver of accidents;
Nor can we say who the story will gather.
Nine they were, under the three moons,
Under the autumn twilight:
As the world declined, they arose
Into the heart of the story.

From the north came danger, as we knew it would:
In encampments of winter, the dragon''s sleep
Has settled the land, but out of the forest,
Out of the plains they come, from the mothering earth
Defining the sky before them.
Nine they were, under the three moons,
Under the autumn twilight:
As the world declined, they arose
Into the heart of the story.

The Lark, the Raven, and the Owl

And larks rise up like angels,
Like angels larks ascend
From sunlit grass as bright as gems
Into the cradling wind.

The plain light in the east
Contrives out of the dark
The machinery of the day,
The diminished song of the lark.

Through night the seasons ride into the dark,
The years surrender in the changing lights,
The breath turns vacant on the dusk or dawn
Between the abstract days and nights.
For there is always corpselight in the fields
And corposants above the slaughterhouse,
And at deep noon the shadowy vallenwoods
Are bright at the topmost boughs.

Water from Dust
Crysania's Song

Funeral Song for Solamnic Knights

Tas's Song of Courage
Hymn to the Dawn

Even the night must fail
For light sleeps in the eyes
And dark becomes dark on dark
Until the darkness dies.

Soon the eye resolves
Complexities of night
Into stillness, where the heart
Falls into fabled light.

Soon the eye dissolves,
Perplexed by the teasing night,
Into a stillness of the heart,
A fable of fallen light.

Three Sheets to the Wind

Sing to a sailor's courage,
Sing while the elbows bend,
A ruby port your harbor,
Hoist three sheets to the wind.

All of the waitresses love you,
Every dog is your friend,
Whatever you say is just what you mean,
So hoist three sheets to the wind.

The Bird Song of Wayreth Forest

Easeful the forest, easeful its mansions perfected
Where we grow and decay no longer, our trees ever green,
Ripe fruit never falling, streams still and transparent
As glass, as the heart in repose this lasting day.

Beneath these branches the willing surrender of movement,
The business of birdsong, of love, left on the borders
With all of the fevers, the failures of memory.
Easeful the forest, easeful its mansions perfected.

And light upon light, light as dismissal of darkness,
Beneath these branches no shade, for shade is forgotten
In the warmth of the light and the cool smell of the leaves
Where we grow and decay; no longer, our trees ever green.

Where the tears are dried from our faces, or settle,
Still as a stream in accomplished countries of peace,
And the traveler opens, permitting the voyage of light
As air, as the heart in repose this lasting day.

Easeful the forest, easful the mansions perfected
Where we grow and decay no longer, our trees ever green,
Ripe fruit never falling, streams still and transparent
As air, as the heart in repose this lasting day.

Canticle of the Dragon

Hear the sage as his song descends
like heaven's rain or tears,
and washes the years, the dust of many stories
from the High Tale of the Dragonlance.
For in ages deep, past memory and word,
in the first blush of the world
when the three moons rose from the lap of the forest,
dragons, terrible and great,
made war on this world of Krynn.

Yet out of the darkness of dragons,
out of our cries for 1ight
in the blank face of the black moon soaring,
a banked light flared in Solamnia,
a knight of truth and of power,
who called down the gods themselves
and forged the mighty Dragonlance, piercing the soul
of dragonkind, driving the shade of their wings
from the brightening shores of Krynn.

Thus Huma, Knight of Solamnia, Lightbringer, First Lancer,
followed his light to the foot of the Khalkist Mountains,
to the stone feet of the gods,
to the crouched silence of their temple.
He called down the Lancemakers, he took on
their unspeakable power to crush the unspeakable evil,
to thrust the coiling darkness
back down the tunnel of the dragon's throat.

Paladine, the Great God of Good, shone at the side of Huma,
strengthening the lance of his strong right arm,
and Huma, ablaze in a thousand moons,
banished the Queen of Darkness,
banished the swarm of her shrieking hosts
back to the senseless kingdom of death, where their curses
swooped upon nothing and nothing
deep below the brightening land.

Yet in the fullness of sunlight
the Kingpriest of Istar saw shadows;
At night he saw the trees as things with daggers, the streams
blackened and thickened under the silent moon.
He searched books for the path of Huma,
for scrolls, signs, and spells
so that he, too, might summon the gods, might find
their aid in his holy aims,
might purge the world of sin.

Then came the time of dark and death
as the gods turned from the world.
A mountain of fire crashed like a comet through Istar,
the city split like a skull in the flames,
mountains burst from once-fertile valleys,
seas poured into the graves of mountains,
the deserts sighed on abandoned floors of the seas,
the highways of Krynn erupted
and became the paths of the dead.

Thus began the Age of Despair.
The roads were tangled.
The winds and the sandstorms dwelt in the husks of cities,
The plains and mountains became our home.
As the old gods lost their power,
we called to the blank sky
into the cold, dividing gray to the ears of new gods.
The sky is calm, silent, unmoving.
We have yet to hear their answer.

Star of the Time and Turning

One generation
gives way to another-
so say philosophers
calendars seasons
sedimentary rock
and the waning eye:
but against them stands poetry
vision and heart
the wild incandescence
each of us feels
as the present converges
and renames the past
and promises everything
even when nothing
seems our destination,
even when stories
reach an inevitable end.

One generation
gives way to another -
a bleak genealogy
fashioned of soil and bone,
and all of our worlds,
both perceived and invented,
trail into chronicle
diminish to legend
in new generations
when you take wife or husband
children you scarcely imagine
come to you, bearing
this book or another.

And then, in the fading
recesses of starlight,
in the earliest pages
of this and all stories,
you will open the book
with those mythical children,
and in showing them country
you traveled one lost
inexpressible spring,
you will find an old sky
of stars half-remembered,
new light will appear
and old lights transfigured,

And providing that all of us
did the task well -
since the first star's inception
since the pen and the compass
since the first of your memories
anchored the past to the present -
all of us then
will repeople the heavens,
what is past what is present
will align in a prospect
of new constellations
and that star, both the same
and forever transformed
has been shining is shining
and will have been shining
eternally here and now.

Dragonfire
Or, Ask a Stupid Quest

Finally, once she took my hand,
Only to say, "Please understand;
Love at a loss should never be
Stranded as we are. Go from me,
Seeking the courage hearts know best,
Showing it all at my request;
Search for what lovers all require:
Return to me with dragonfire."

2. PREPARATION AND PRAYER
Sighing, she left. Her steps were slow,
Waiting for things I might not know.
Homeward I went, not looking back;
All through the night I filled a pack,
Stocking a bag of cleric's tomes,
Chalices, charms and palindromes,
Weapons of wonder and of war,
Sorcerers' scrolls and kenderlore.

Sunrise I stood beside my bed,
My rucksack high above my head.
Forward I strode, my bed unmade,
Walking the road ahead, I prayed:
"Grant me the cunning of a gnome,
Cold of an elven catacomb,
Courage of knights, and so inspire
My quest to bring her dragonfire."

3. THE SEARCH FOR GUIDANCE
Ready for doom, I shared my quest,
Full of the one whom I loved best,
Telling a shepherd all.
He laughed
And wiped his eyes and said, "Ye're daft.
What do you want with all that gear?
Planning on being gone a year?"
I said, "I seek a dragon, where -"
The shepherd shrugged. "He's just up there.
Left at the lane's-end here, then straight,
Right at the spring and upper gate,
Above the pasture land a way -
I walk it every other day.
Looking for dragonfire? Then go,
Tell him that Ralphie says hello.
Half a day's hike or so, not higher,
I think you'll find your dragonfire."

4. THE QUEST, HOWEVER BRIEF
He and his kinfolk laughed at me.
Turning my face from mockery
Facing my destiny, unsure,
Heedless of toil and sheep manure,
Scaling the slopes alone, unkissed,
Facing the mountains and the mist,
I climbed the ramparts, not to tire
Till I discovered dragonfire.

6. THE SUPERNATURAL RESPONSE
His answer came abrupt and clear:
"Young man, did Ralphie send you here?"
I nodded, mute. The dragon, wise,
Looking at me through golden eyes,
Answered my challenge, all intent:
"But this is hardly what she meant-"
Turning aside his deadly breath,
"-A lover wouldn't seek your death.
Sleep until sunrise, then go down,
Back to your love who used to frown;

Dream of her smiling, through this night,
Dream of her under candle-light,
Dream of her in a moonlit glade,
Dream of her dancing, unafraid,
Dream of her wet with dreams and dew,
Dream of her as she dreams of you.
Dream of her as your heart's desire,
And you will find your dragonfire."

7. THE REVELATION, AND THE END OF THE QUEST
I dreamed of her. I dreamed her dress:
Satin to lace, to less and less,
And then to smiles.
My dream was good,
And when I woke, I understood.
Up in the dawn I leapt and sprang,
Running downhill, I wept and sang
Till I was home, and there I fell,
Right at the door I knew so well,
Opening arms, and bended knee.
To my delight, she ran to me.

We met embracing, lips on lips,
All-tracing eyes and fingertips,
Both of us yielding in attack,
Cloaked in a night discreetly black.
Hearts are the oven of desire

The Old Barkeep

(chorus)
Drink once, and if you drink twice
Please heed an old barkeep's advice

1. Just after you've finished a flagon,
Don't bet you can harness a dragon,
It will take it amiss
And probably hiss
And will surely demolish the wagon.

(chorus)
2. If bottles of wine make you tender
Do not try to cuddle a kender,
For you'll lose all your gold,
And also I'm told
It is hard to distinguish their gender.

(chorus)
4. When you're downing a grog on the wharf
Refrain, sir, from drowning a dwarf,
He will shout and resist
And brandish his fist
And make sure that your features all morph.

Drink once, and if you drink twice
Please heed an old barkeep's advice.

The Death of Sturm

A knight of noble bearing, stood on battlements gray,
ever forward staring, awaiting his fate this day.
An ancient sword and ancient mail, heirlooms of a father lost,
to succeed and not to fail, but what would be the cost?
To live and to die, for a knighthood falling,
look to the clouds where dragons fly, death is ever calling.

Alone stood the knight, and on came a dragon blue,
he stayed to fight, and for his death he knew.
A dragon's loud shrill cry, his rider calm and steady,
down they charged from the sky, at the knight standing ready.
His sword swung low, but his foe did not relent,
and the spear struck a blow, that through his body went.
An elf maiden's grief like clouds o'er the sun,
a sadness that will not be brief and sorrow that will never be done.

She stands on battlements gray, in the chill of winter night,
sorrowed by that day, saddened by her plight.
Falling down her cheek, drops a single tear,
the cold wind creaks, and blows away her fear.
Like ice in summer's light, like dragons of a winter night.

Lament for Lost Gods

Who will look down on us, who will intercede?
Who will answer questions, help in time of need?
Who will guide our fairing forth to near or far?
Who will take an interest in flood, in storm, in war?

The gods we knew are vanished, nevermore to still the pleas
Of aching voices so lone, so pained, so shrill. Is there any hope left?
Will there soon appear a dawn undimmed by sorrow,
A dawn unmasked by fear

When we can be encouraged by guardians in the skies?
Who sing to us of succor, who promise us a scryre of things eternal
All alone, abandoned we cry pleading for one bright hand
Owned by an immortal when gods return to Krynn.

Dwarven Forge Song

Metal rings beneath my hammer,
Steel takes shape on anvil cold.
Fire glows bright with sighs from bellows,
Gold, silver bronze, all these to mold.

Metal sings beneath my hammer,
Star bright sparks rain down and fade.
Quench the blank in fog draped water,
Draw fire again and none afraid.

Become the worship of our minds,
Become the kinship of one vigil.
All of Krynn our work behold.
All of Krynn our work behold!

Precious gemstones glint and glimmer
Fastened 'round a shadowed throat.
Shining from a wrist, a finger,
Bounty from a wealthy world.

Metal sings beneath our hammers,
Wax drips softly from our molds.
Reorx's gifts embraced by dwarf-kind,
Jewel and chalice, ring and sigil,

Become the worship of our minds,
Become the kinship of one vigil.
All of Krynn our work behold.
All of Krynn our work behold!

Gully Dwarf Healing Song

Lizard Cure, Lizard Cure, it sure make you whole.
Get better, inhale scent, should be you only goals.
Do not mind its cold dead eyes staring at you chin.
Just think what it do for you, make you right again!

Stew is fighting back tonight? Shoulders caught a shiver?
Mage he threw a spell on you? Lightning left you quiver?
Crossed a dragon's path again, skin burned, muscles sore?
Got the thing to fix you up: stand still, get the cure!

Lizard Cure, Lizard Cure, it sure make you whole.
Get better, inhale scent, should be you only goals.
Do not mind its cold dead eyes staring at you chin.
Just think what it do for you, make you right again!

Lizard Cure, Lizard Cure, it sure make you whole.
Get better, inhale scent, should be you only goals.
Do not mind its cold dead eyes staring at you chin.
Just think what it do for you, make you right again!

Pimples on you earlobes, blue fungus on you toes,
Ouch among you insides, sick from gods may know.
Gotta get soon better, important things to do.
Stand real still, the Lizard Cure gonna take care a you!

Lizard Cure, Lizard Cure, it sure make you whole.
Get better, inhale scent, should be you only goals.
Do not mind its cold dead eyes staring at you chin.
Just think what it do for you, make you right again!

Hail to Mount Nevermind

The Thinking Song

Knights of the Fourth Brigade

We're the Fourth Brigade,
To protect is our duty as The Measure doth decree,
We'll serve with faith and loyalty
Bringing Knights of the Crown glory.

When we don our swords and our armor
To protect a king or a farmer,
Or defend a castle from harm here,

Evil dragon fear will not scare us
Nor the lure of evil ensnare us
For our oath of honor prepares us

We're the Fourth Brigade,
To protect is our duty as The Measure doth decree,
We'll serve with faith and loyalty
Bringing Knights of the Crown glory.

Pub Song of Northern Ergoth

Let us lift our mugs of ale.
To good times we'll give a hail,
And lift a glass and tell the tale
Of the friends who are gathered here.

All the liquor here is the strong kind.
If you drink enough you will soon find,
That you've lost your cares and you don't mind,
If you stay till dawn.

Let us lift our mugs of ale.
To good times we'll give a hail,
And lift a glass and tell the tale
Of the friends who are gathered here.

Patrons here are stout and quite able,
To drink Reorx under the table.
Tales of our deed spread like a fable
Across Ansalon.

All the serving girls are quite pretty,
And they all seem willing and witty.
There's no better place in the city
Open all night long.

Let us lift our mugs of ale.
To good times we'll give a hail,
And lift a glass and tell the tale
Of the friends who are gathered here.

To the good times here we'll sing our praise,
Just as long as somebody else pays!
Then our glasses once again we'll raise,
As we sing along!

Let us lift our mugs of ale.
To good times we'll give a hail,
And lift a glass and tell the tale
Of the friends who are gathered here.

Designed and Maintaned by Breaga Silverwolfe ©2008
email krynnwoman@gmail.com

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