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Ballad of the Bear

A Monster's Introduction

Oyez! Hear ye, all who would listen
To this tale of woe told by a monster
For I am he, the lurking hunter at night
When safely you lay yourself to dream
Outside you I stalk, within you I wake
Arriving unseen, till one moment too late

When with a start, you see the hour is late
With ear pricked, you wait, ah, you listen
Like one who slumbers but struggles to wake
For in your visions you see me, the monster
You know naught of reality, nor of dream
Only loathing by day and terror by night!

I am punished to dwell in an eternal night
While you, you are free, though only late
In life, should you live so long, is the dream
Reformed in all its truth, bidding you to listen
And beware, aye take care, of a lurking monster
Who’d disabuse you of illusion, force you to wake

Into a larger reality, in whose fathomless wake
Is pulled the remnants of that single night
When you, earning your life, did face a monster
A tale for your children, told in memory of late
Friends, whose spirits moan in pain as they listen
To the lesson belatedly learned, end of a dream

I too once hoped, for I too knew how to dream
So sweetly did I sleep, I was ever loathe to wake
To myriad mysteries did I attend, did I listen
To a proclamation of birthright, my realm of night
All mysterious things, which sooner or late
You learn are not yours, but are of the monster

How is one to survive, when one is a monster?
Either you hunt me or you consign me to dream
To nothing more than a fancy born of a late
Worry, that perhaps, perhaps you still must wake
To face me at last, in my own domain of long night
Where to your endless cries no soul shall listen

Come now and face the monster, for the hour draws late!
Face me, coward, in your dream, in the dead of the night!
And just before you wake, before you die, you will finally
…listen!

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