Shadows shift in a dark tower
Where Roland came, boyish and ruddy.
A princess doomed, an empty bower,
Shadows shift in that dark tower.
The fate of kings who’ve lost their power,
In bones and entrails, blind and bloody.
Shadows shift in a dark tower
Where Roland came, boyish and ruddy.

SLEEPING BEAUTY
   “Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”
   W.B. Yeats, He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

Through mandrake groves and tangled vines,
Though thorns and midnight howls …
How silently the moon pines.
Through mandrake groves and tangled vines,
Enchanted love, intoxicating wine.
Briar’s rose and midnight owls,
Through mandrake groves and tangled vines,
Though thorns and midnight howls …

LOVE DRAUGHT
   “Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind”
   ―William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Beneath a bank where violets grow,
Where fairies dewdrops seek—
Through oxlips and musk-rose, a river flows.
Beside that bank, where violets grow,
A midnight witch, Titania bold. Her lantern glows
Amidst sweet eglantine. Her lover sleeps
Beside that bank where violets grow,
Where fairies dewdrops seek.