Locked in Mists and Rose

Was how the lord left home,
In hopes of a new home
Where all the towns were weeds.

If it had not been fate
For there to be a next
Lord, he would have sailed on

To the end of all days,
Wind in his sails of lace.
But so long as there’s next,

There’s a next lord, there’s fate.
He was a beast with taste,
Sick with want, like all beasts.

He made a tax on light,
And now the fields are dark.
He made a tax on trees,

And crows still nest in them
By his stream’s banks at dusk.
He was a beast. But once

Dead, how could he have asked
The last lord of the beasts
To sing of what he pleased?