A Warning to Travelers
Who among you has leapt
The gossamer-strand pathways
Of Time, or stared into the brass bowl
Of black oak-water and looked
For Visions of Being
In the modes and ever-shifting sands
Of things Becoming?
Have you ever dared to look out
And see beyond
This present Time and Space?
Beware! For if you dare to visit that place
–The forest of Broceliande,
Fairest but most deadly–
Where saint and devil equally tread
Outside the confines of mere mortal threads,
Where each joint is a center
And each center a pit
Dug before the feet of the sinner,
And where all roads but one
Lead, inexorably,
To Terror, Madness, and Want?
Beware, fellow traveler,
For to stay too long in the Land of the Fey
Means that you may one day
Be unable to return to the Land of Men;
For Caolite whose hair
Burns like flame beckons,
And Niamh, with a pitying yearning
Calls out your name
To come away,
Away,
Away,
Forever.
