{"sf1_id":1713724,"sf2_id":"Xek3dMeg","title":"Ragnarok - Prologue","author":"Rob MacWolf","words":433,"posted_at":"2021-05-03T05:15:00.000Z","tags":["Epic","Iambic pentameter","Poetry","blank verse"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1713724-ragnarok-prologue","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/s/Xek3dMeg","image_url":"https://cdn.sofurryfiles.com/submissions/thumbnails/c9/f2/c9f2fbfc-91ca-4c66-a364-be618ed061da","description":"#1 of Ragnarok\n\nThere's going to be a lot of this.\nRagnarok is over a hundred pages of Iambic Pentameter. It took me several years to write. I couldn't find any form of publication that was interested, and actually made my tumblr, initially, to have someone to post it.\nSeeing as I'm now here, you can guess how that went.\nI won't blame anyone for not being into it. But at least this way, if no one hears it, it will not be because I failed to speak it.","content":"\"Amidst the journey of our life  \nI awoke in a dark wood\"  \n- Dante Alighieri, _Divine_\u0026nbsp;_Comedy_  \n  \n\"In the clearing stands a boxer and a fighter by his trade  \nAnd he carries the reminder of every glove that laid him down  \nOr cut him till he cried out in his anger and his shame  \n'I am leaving I am leaving' but the fighter still remains.\"  \n-\u0026nbsp;Paul Simon,\u0026nbsp;_The Boxer_\n\nEternal Rest Grant Unto Them, O Lord,  \nAnd Let the Perpetual Light Shine Upon Them,  \nAnd May the Souls of the Faithful Departed,  \nThrough the Mercy of God,  \nRest In Peace.  \n- Prayer for the Dead, Traditional\n\nThe muses have been silent for too long.  \nThey speak no more of towers topless-tall,  \nNor intellectual lightning filled with love.  \nThey justify no ways of god to man.  \nThey seek no sign in dark seas riding high.  \nThe poets wander witless far away.  \nThey lack madness divine. They cannot sing  \nBut briefly and of things particular.  \nThe world escapes their words. They do not see  \nThe constellations of the things men love  \nSpread out beneath their feet like fiery jewels.  \nHow shall I sing this weighty tale alone?  \nOf Shane the Champion, and those who stood  \nBeside him, as a world went down to dark.  \nHow he escaped our age of grime, into  \nA place of clarity and cold, where harsh  \nAre deeds, and worthy of remembering.  \nThe deaths of gods and heroes are my notes,  \nTheir swords my instruments, my beat their breath.  \nI only lack for lyrics, and a voice  \nTo feed them swiftly to my hungry brain.  \nBut muses speak no more. I know not how  \nTo call them down again, to wake them up,  \nTo catch their bright contagion of the tongue,  \nThen I could speak as I would speak. For now,  \nI cast my invocation to the winds  \nTo carry as they will, to any power  \nThat may yet be awake enough to move  \nAnd answer. May they carry it to gods  \nOf pine colossus and infinite plain.  \nMay they invoke for me the homeless shades  \nCast out by thankless lands for which they mourn.  \nMay they call down St. Michael and St. George,  \nWho know what courage is, better than I.  \nOr may they find again the ancient nine  \nGrown old, grandmotherly, and nearly blind,  \nTo stir their holy madness one last time.  \nOr may they come and answer it themselves.  \nI am content, and will no more require,  \nSo long as any spirit drives me on  \nTo burn my words as fireworks, expire,  \nAnd leave mankind's last epic when I'm gone.\n\n  \n  \n\n","series":{"name":"Ragnarok","next":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1713726-ragnarok-i.json"}}