'In Silk and Steel..'
In silk and steel, their darkest arts,
Stoop surgeons all to weave;
Their pagan spells in blood and flesh,
Upon this fragile bloom:
While yet this tender, gentle form,
No moment’s soft reprieve;
Or let its torment’s daily yoke,
To light the deathly gloom.
No god give day, no morn, no hour,
Lies placid with its kin;
No docile night passed free the stings,
Those sharp and silken bites:
Nor solace brings the gut churned day,
For ‘neath that pallid skin;
All drip, drip, drip, a devil’s brew,
Cruel every cell ignites!
Oh! Frail and sickly, feeble child,
So small a life to spare;
Each trembling beat but bare a pulse,
All breath a titan’s trial:
No lock or curl to drape your brow,
Nor lash to shade day’s glare;
But torments set to test the saints,
To spiteful gods revile.
And yet; within that fragile shell,
So feeble, fraught and small;
There beats a heart, though troubled sore,
That will no quarter give:
An iron will in velvet guise,
As hard as granite spall;
That will not cede one paltry inch,
Within its fight to live.
A warrior soul in tender flesh,
Ribbed through in brightest steel;
No easy meat the Reaper’s blade,
Nor yet so meek or mild:
This battle joined lays far from lost,
No hand upon this deal;
Oh fearful shade, seek prey elsewhere ,
You shall not have this child!
