The Herald

A poem

Gulacsy, Lajos. Siege of a Castle. 1910

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I stood on watch atop the castle wall
When out of shadow rolled, with deadly crawl, 
The army, all now marching onward, strong; 
With rams and towers heading up the throng. 
I yelled along and rang the hollow bell 
Then lit the torch to warn their coming hell
And raced to tell my Lord of all I saw, 
For Death I swore was raising up its claw. 
While soon to draw the papers of a truce, 
My liege did trust in me to be of use, 
So set me loose to represent his crown. 
And I then took some trusted men from town 
To gallop down and meet the killers first. 
We signaled with a flag as was rehearsed 
But feared the worst, as we approached the camp. 
Then, there I was still freezing, cold and damp, 
With but a lamp between my face and his
(The demon who had started all of this).
And here it is, the last thing I recall
Before my headless body took its fall:
For there, withal—the unforgiving blight—
I'll always be the herald of that night.  

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This poem was generated by the author’s human mind with zero AI / LLM involvement.