I've been trying to emulate the style of those great poems That thrilled me at school, I always loved Epics like 'The lady of shalott, Lochinvar etc' anyway this is my latest attempt.
Mirror silver clad she stood, upon the lakes dark shore,
A spectral icy vision , that chilled me to the core.
A vapour’d hand she raised to lead, across the sheet glass lake
With racing heart and awestruck eye, I traced its misty wake
A cold dead air, that chilled my soul, now held my senses keen.
For there among the darkened woods, I saw what can’t be seen.
Like unlit candles stood a host, of mournful waxen dead,
In decaying desperation, with the fixed stares of the mad
My pounding heart so close to fail, beat faster at the sight,
As gliding ever closer drew, these sentinels of night.
What fearful power, what dreadful fate, hath drawn them from the grave.
Whilst I transfixed upon that shore, my sanity I craved.
Then turned the lady of the Lake and fixed her steel grey eyes,
then pointed once again to where, the darkwood secrets lie.
My fading gaze could scarce suppose the horrors there replayed,
Whilst spectre ranks, in silence viewed with countenance dismayed.
Upon my knees, through fingers splayed, and terrified to see,
the horror there unfolding, between those witness trees.
I saw the bloody massacres, heard shocked and dreadful cries,
I felt their fear, and died their deaths, with terror in my eyes .
Each wicked deed, each evil act, each thrust assassins blade,
of every dreadful murder done, within that forest glade.
With screams of death, and cries of loss, the misty shore resounds,
To haunt my soul and flay my ear, upon that hell struck ground.
In faint I fell with senses lost, afraid to look again,
as words she spake in whispered tone, ‘Remember when you wake,
these unjust works, these sinful acts, leave vengeance thirst unslaked,
thus you must tell of this darkwood, beside the silver lake.’
Through ravens eye, I saw my fate, blood scribed upon the ground,
whilst shadows of the darkwood’s dead, stood solemnly around.
Accusing faces staring down, from purgatory’s stay,
Those stares of death of those dead eyes shall haunt me till I die.
‘The reaper with his sudden scythe, doth sever meek and bold,
his harvest ever incomplete, till all are in his fold.
But thou alone are given grace, one chance to change thy fate,
and recount the tales of this darkwood, ere for thee too late.’
With trembling limbs, these awful words, raised me from the ground,
as thunder pealed, the heavens wept, below that fearful sound.
Stumbling in the fear of death, I fled that fearsome place,
In panic’d flight with senses lost, I ran at headlong pace.
The pastor caught me in his arms, his face close drawn and near,
‘I thought all knew, of that darkwood, all hallow’s night to fear.’
Dishevelled mind, and speech foregone, too faint to tell the tale,
was I borne to the chapel, beyond the darkwood’s vale.
His draught of wine gave sustenance, becalmed my racing heart,
Within the hour, with stuttered breath, my tale I did impart.
Deathly pale, he trembling stood, before the altar high,
with bitter tears he bowed his head, and groaned an awful sigh.
With granite jaw and head held high, he swore a dreadful oath,
that he should die that very night, or exorcise these ghosts.
His cloak drawn close about him, he knelt in silent prayer,
then turned without a backward glance and walked toward their lair.
His Bible held before him, like a shield before the fray,
The pastor strode into the night, his daemons to allay.
‘The time has come to face the past, to reap what I have sown,
These spectres of my debauched life, I must face alone.’
At morn’s first light, I ventured forth, and found him by the lake,
and whispering through morning mist, to me the Lady spake.
‘Thou spoke the words and told our tale, the justice thirst is quenched,
For vengeance is exacted, and the guilty life expunged.
For thirty years, this wretched soul, turned evil from the good,
and bound us here, beside the lake, beneath the deep darkwood.’
Subject: The Lady of the Lake 
