Three Etchings By Gustave Doré Poem by Matthew Buchwald

I

On a frozen lake inside a cavern,
Two men disturb a body caught in the ice;
In the half light we see many more persons,
All of them frozen into the placid pond;
The anguish of the pitiable victims
Is dimly etched into the eerie landscape.

II

On a ledge above a gorge in the mountains,
A rider halts his horse by a slain knight;
Lying prostrate are two other cadavers,
Man and horse with their skeletons picked clean;
Sympathy for the luckless adventurers,
Is inscribed in the rider's sorrowful poise.

III

On a highway to a landing by a bay,
While the dwellers retreat outside their village,
Two sailors with mallets warily stop to talk,
As pirates slyly creep into the square;
Dread of coming chaos and catastrophe,
Is in tracery of the tenebrous town.

IV

Despair is everywhere, and foreboding,
Which oppresses the onlooker to these scenes;
But the fables have no moral, no judgment,
As from philosophy such tales hold aloof;
Each impression is a representation
Of the nameless horror inside your own mind.