Ladyhawk

On my cycle  
In a gale  
That winter's night  
Away from the sight of my beautiful dead Elaine  
on dark old Tetbury lane  

Peddling faster  
trying hard to master  
This awful fright  
On ancient paths so cold yet bright from a ghastly moon that casts it's light  
 
Hawthorne hedges  
Lining edges  
Lank and brown bent grassy verges  
That did lead to the open crossroads  
Surrounded by foreboding and rotten broken down fallen fences  
 
There upon a pyre
Heaped high with wind fallen ash and hazel  
Elaine standing proud and fatal  
My Elaine so faithful  
Of slow starry walks, deep secret talks, of nights she watched me like the hawk  
 
She was, I found her  
Winged and broken in the bower  
Deep in woods alone in a autumn shower  
Nursed her, kept her hid  
Fed her mice upon a twig then one strange hour she showed her true fantastic power  
 
Changeling  
Weird witch science  
From feathers to maiden fair  
Naked whispering defiance in my ear  
She told me her name, my beautiful Elaine I visited down dark old Tetbury lane  
 
To late the fires lit  
Angry townsfolk  
The devil her soul they pray commit  
Elaine shackled to the post positioned in the fire pit  
I witness helpless, smoke rising hot and hellish, flames leaping toward my precious  
 
Elaine  
Her mouth a silent screaming no  
The crowd a shifting laughing show  
Her fierce eyes found me  
I shout to fly free, she struggles to change as the flames scorch her blazing like a torch  
 
Fire roaring high  
Now all can hear a keening cry  
There rising in the sky an imprint outlined for an instant my Elaine's last distant sad goodbye  
Wind whipped this image from my heart  
The ladyhawk and I are now apart