Let the Shadow inflict collateral damage
On Venus who alights from a shell to the shore
To light your fire as the chill winds rage
And vipers strike from the blossomless floor;

And let the Shadow’s gunships even pound
The trees that surge as the fresh year blooms
And the land and the folk who, all seasons round,
Within stony walls find precarious rooms:

It is the door, the door, strong hewn from oak
Whose roots strike deep as the head branch soars,
Lets pass fresh air or forbids the strafe.

And if its hinge should fail those rooms would choke
Or lodging be given to thundering boars,
As the round dances on in the valleys of Alph.