Requiem for Dunsany

Another bouts-rimes sonnet submitted at Westercon. The end words for this came from a sonnet by Keats called "On the Grasshopper and the Cricket." The end words were: dead, sun, run, mead, lead, done, fun, weed, never, frost, shrills, ever, lost, hills. I wrote the following.

The people say Lord Dunsany is dead
for they don't see him walking in the sun
that shines on mortal lands. His race was run,
they say. But drink with me a glass of mead,
and I will tell you how the fairies led
him from his bed. His suffering was done.
He bade farewell to earthly life and fun,
this mortal garden, sad and choked with weed,
and now he walks the emerald hills that never
brown with drought or wither in the frost.
Where in the distance, delicate and shrill,
the horns of Elfland faintly blowing ever
summon forth the lonely and the lost
on ferny roads that wind through Elfland's hills.


If you aren't familiar with Lord Dunsany, go find a copy of The Charwoman's Shadow, at any cost.