Treacherous Warrior

Treacherous Warrior

Bracer of locking grip
Crushing wrist and vein sinew
Blood, in unease, goes to drip
Free me from this pain anew.

Oppression, madness doth deem
A doom for my lawful sin
Against my country’s esteem
Now I rot in chains of steel and tin.

How more should I suffer
That I learn to repent and regret
For that which evil does offer
I believe I can never forget.

Will I now broil in misery
My self and soul did upon itself bring
The heaviest price for my treachery
Treason against God and king?

Dante did once write of my ilk
Burning in hell’s ninth layer
We who used words of silk
And whose lies were sacred prayer.

Do I fear this fate most supreme
To dangle off demon fang
Forever hiding a painful scream
Wallowing in vengeance’s bitter tang?

Nay, let these bars arraign me
Death itself is no better destiny
I must take flight and flee
Rather than decay here in solitary.

For while they can cage mortal flesh
My spirit, my mind shall never rust
With utter will these bars I would thresh
And betray once more the public trust.

Am I mad? No, only driven
Petty monarchs cannot imprison
The self I have generously given
Power that needs no lesson.

It has been long since I learned
To go beyond naive idealism
For believe me I have yearned
Nothing more than truest altruism.

And yet I find no miracle cure
For a social cancer so utterly dire
Where none resist corruption’s allure
Dark water douses morality’s pious fire.

So I take up arms and fight
A revolution so strikingly true
For my defeated nation I smite
Evil vermin and immoral shrew.

Yet the government prevails
And so I am banished
And in the dungeons, a hero wails
Hope now gone, vanished.

And so I turn, wrath reborn
To the foes whose deaths I plan
Your stain I shall thwart and scorn
I am willing to die to the last man.

But there is no rest for the traitor
Who wishes peace for his land
I will fight and revolt until I grow pallor
And God, with His might, take my hand.