The Waters of the Crypt

The moisture drops from all the walls,

And seems to close around

The grim, and dank, and musty walls

That echo every sound.

The water drops in darkened streams

And flows into the cracks

In walls and floor, and almost seems

To bring the light its lack.

The water, dark, does seem to take

The light here fast away,

The water, black, does seem to make

A labyrinth dark this day.

The water flows o'er bones and brick

That jut from out the walls;

The water flows, so ever thick

As though it's blood that falls.

The blood of life, so ever sweet

Does seem to fall around--

The blood that gives the heart its beat

And falls without a sound.

A thousand years of bone and sand

Are slowly washed away

By hundred's year's of water's hand

As it pulls brick and clay.

But as it runs through all its ways

The water seems to know

That it does make the darkness stay

Within its somber flow.

What secrets lie within this place

That seems to hide its life;

What secrets lie without their grace,

Now buried with their strife.

A light, so strange, does seem to come

Towards me where I rest,

What is this light, this light, wherefrom?

This light that lets no rest.

A figure strange now walks around

Within the musty crypt;

The sounds of footsteps do abound

This long-forgotten crypt.

What purpose, this, that wonders on

Could bring to this dark place?

What goal has it, with its false dawn

That crests the wall's grim face?

A drop, a drop, another drop,

And fast the figure slows,

A drop, a drop, and fast it stops,

As if the water knows.

Fast and loud, and suddenly

The wall does crack and fall

As water pours through quick and free--

The maze here changes all.

The figure, buried, surely dead,

I see from my grim spot,

An arm, a leg, and there a head,

I see now from my plot.

No movement there, nothing I see,

As light and water falls,

This place, this tomb, now his to be,

As water rises tall.

The water falls, and light with haste

Does drip from off the walls

As though a thick and viscous paste;

Then silence covers all.

And dark, again, a grim reprieve,

Does cover corpse and stone;

So dark, so mute, yet I believe

This form speaks soft from bone.

The tale is told, by his pale hide

Beneath the rock and bone,

His tale now adds a grim aside

For others ne'er to know.

Now time, such time, does eat away

At this once lit up hall,

The stone, and dirt, and brick and clay

Creates it's fune'ral pall.

The scene, returned, as it once was,

To silent, muted ground;

As water flows, and surely does

Erase all light and sound.

And still the water, flows and flows

And takes away all light,

The water flows, and surely knows

Its strong, and wrathful might.

The blood of crypt that flows around,

And kills the slightest sound.