Hunt Cycle (Part I): So Pass the Night

With combinéd warmth and fur to aid,
In a thatched stone hut we sleep away
The stormtossed eternity before
A tempest-slaked Dawn proclaims with
Less ashen features our final day.
No pretense before the Reaper's grin
Can any sane and true heart mistake,
For even noble Hope is but lie
To the undiminished candle Truth,
Though a beacon Hope to some might be.

Hence in frenzied slumber we take our
Nightmare rest between prescient knockings
Of a deriding summer gale,
And the engaging chorus of thunder,
Icon of a storm which in clear skies
Would yet in vengeance hunt us down.
Alas I ache that of our night's work
No suckling gift could hope to swim the
Darkly flooding froth of Fate's canal,
So adverse Her aborting currents.

Oh Céala mine, what have we lost in
Prideful disobedience wrought in
Support of long tarnished Honor’s name?
A child, a love, and our present forms,
Which we both have honed since our coughed breath
As summoned forth by cold creek waters
With which our parents did us first bathe.
The Warrior’s Way have we both led,
In Glory’s light our trail to tred,
But such heroic visions only
Dream and wine shaped legends lead.

Thus in race hewn pride only anguish
Have we received from our rebellious
Opposition to an ignoble
Lord whom all else in silence endured,
As one might the coming of a harsh,
Callous frost in Samhain’s bitter month.
Only an Enemy have we now
To show for our lives' passing efforts;
Desires slowly sagging below
The darkened horizon of this His
Furious affront-engendered storm.
With His revenge-honed demonic watch,
The Enemy in sleepful humour
Waits, His prey-delaying rains to pass,
And returned with morn the Chase to keep.
Hounds and horns shall hap'ly hunt us down
Once the traitor heavens heal to blue,
Our love and lives beneath drumming hooves
And foaming bays banishéd from Eire,
Our spirits roving with this crying,
Laughing storm which gifts one last respite.

Yet even now on reeded roof and
Soaked and trembling guardian shutters,
The torrent steeping slows its drummer’s
Count; in silence, Fate's mute crescendo.
As the fire raged with windswept might,
Somehow distant seemed the rapping end.
But now with fading warmth and light, our
Time remaining is glassed in embers.
With lances forward the hunt rumbles
Anon; thus I beg, sooth our eager
Painéd hearts, and so pass the night!