I asked my love to stay with me,
Because dusk would soon bring the night.
But she wouldn’t understand how
Grave at gloaming was her plight.

For I had lost another love
As the moon began soaring high.
I couldn’t rush to protect her
Because a curséd soul am I.

For when the dusk melts away in
The firm, unyielding grasp of night,
Satan has me in his power,
And I’m a weakling of a wight.

Yea, with day’s light ebbs my strength, and
I am condemned that I should die,
If I should ever venture out
Beneath the moon’s all-watchful eye.

I am no vampire nor werewolf.
Indeed, I am not nocturnal,
For no creature of the night’s
Received a hex so infernal.

For a witch’s spell’s bound to me
For rejecting her advances,
That now by night shall perish all
Of my flings and true romances.

I should have seen her as she was,
The soul that’s jealously cursed me
That I might never have true love,
To remain dreadful and lonely.

But how can I tell my love
That she is in mortal danger?
For every second she stays here
She thinks I’m a little stranger.

Perhaps she believes that my pleas
But mask my carnal appetite.
Since she won’t be entreated, I
Tell her, “Make haste while there’s still light.”

I know now as I close the door
That I may never again see
The vision I was wont to hold
Like an angel in Jubilee.

On the morrow I rise early,
Hoping against my hope I’d see
Her whole and healthy like heralds
Welcome banners with fleur-de-lis.

“Isn’t it strange,” the healer said,
Lancing away at rancid boils,
“That the troll has taken her so
Quickly that all her beauty spoils?

He’s given her pneumonia, too.
I’ll have to bleed the monster out.”
As he slit her arms green blood oozed
Like slime from a clogged water spout.

“You’d better call a priest in, son,
To give her the Extreme Unction.
I’m not sure how much longer her
Body’ll be able to function.”

With the anguish of the guilty,
I ran to find our local friar.
But I found the abbey empty
Because he’d traveled from our shire.

And now my lovely love suffers,
And she’ll die without the Last Rites.
The witch has hindered her soul’s fate,
Just like my happiness she blights.

They take her corpse far out of town
With neither rosemary nor sage
To douse the smell nor flowers to
Line her grave. Nothing will assuage

My filthy conscience nor the rage
That reins supreme now in my breast;
It’s the witch’s fault that her heart’s
Stationary within her chest.

I dread to think of wooing
This cruel witch whose heart is pitch black,
But that might be the only way
To get vengeance and freedom back.

I will go down to her grotto.
I’ll court this wicked witch from hell,
And soon enough I’ll be released
From the taint of this hellspawn’s spell.

“Finally come for me, love?”
Questioned the sorceress’s croon,
As she looked up from where she sat
Eating the brains of a baboon.

“I have, my lady,” I answered.
“I knew eventually this day
Would come, and though warts cover my
Skin, you would look the other way.”

“What has happened to your beauty?”
She replied, “Magic has its price.
Looks are a petty sacrifice
For power,” She said scratching lice.

“You’ve heard the rumor, and it’s true,
That a witch must give demons suck.
They latch on my warts and feast on
My beauty like it were a duck,

And when they have drained all of it,
They then feed on my emotions.
But I take from them the art of
Runes, mysticism, and potions.”

A zealous light glowed in her eye;
Insanity rotted her mind.
The delirium of black arts
Had her once pure soul much maligned.

Once she was considered pretty;
She doted on my every wish.
But she would never have my heart,
Since I had given it to Trish.

“Then shall we try our love anew?”
She asked, never fearing that worse
Would chance. “I’d like that, but I
Can’t love someone who does me curse.”

“Give your word that you’ll love me, should
I now release you from the spell.”
“You have it and my heart.” This vow
Later made me fain be in hell.

As soon as her incantation
My previous enchantment broke,
She rushed to my arms for a hug
She ne’er received, for I did choke

Her with all the vengeance
Pent up inside from my losses.
When she stopped flailing, I released.
She collapsed atop the mosses

That covered the dank floor where she
Had taken refuge in despair.
Her body began to smolder;
There was a violent blast of air.

And though she’d died, her words echoed
Deep within my mind, “Man that I
Loved, though thou hast no feelings or
Compassion in thy heart or eye,

Thou shalt no longer have body
Or form, thou narcissistic wretch,
Now never shall thy sinister
Looks another fragile heart catch.

Love shall never more be thine, and
Never again shall thy lips kiss.
Thou shalt live forever as thou
Art; thou shalt never have true bliss.

Thou shalt be a shadow of a
Man, a shade that cannot expire,
For thou wast not able to love.
Only those who love can retire

To the realms of the dead, for they
Are the only ones who lived. Thou
Never hadst true love, thus ne’er
Lived. There is no hope for thee now.

Thou shalt be without a love to
Love thee, without a true warm vein.
Thou hast caused me to be a witch,
Ergo, thou must now go insane.

Thou shalt surely pass from one form
To another, and e’er exist
Without life, death, pleasure, and love;
And on shadows shalt thou subsist.

Thou shalt ne’er have company in
Hell, where I belong for my crimes.
But Hell shall be more pleasant than
Thy “life,” as thou shalt see betimes.

It pains me, and I repent for
‘Twas not the girls’ fault thou didst pine
For their affection and spurn mine.
They did nothing; the fault is thine.

Guilt harrows my soul for having
E’er those innocents afflicted
With plague and ague and death, and not
Having thine own neck constricted.

Thy vanity caused me to be
A witch and brought this curse on all
Of us—your girls, yourself, and me.
Thy pride hast engineered our fall.

Thus thou shalt pass eternity
Alone and unable to die.
Thou shalt be a mere figment, an
Imagination of the eye.”

As the wind and her words faded,
My form began to melt away.
In trembling horror I became
A shadow cursed to ne’er see day.

There were others I had courted
Before, but they forgot my name.
The society I once loved
Never looked upon me again,

For they saw only a shadow
That tickled their cursed memory.
I would haunt forever without
Love’s blessings. I was emery,

And daylight was my cruel torture
That kept me from having free reign
Of motion. By night I traveled,
Seeking beauties in my domain.

Through the darkness I would creep to
Their beds and stoop to give a kiss.
But my presence they would sense, and
Their lamps would seek what was amiss.

My victims kept the witch’s curse
In efficacy alway.
It’s a shame; I was quite handsome
Before she took my form away.