Of Dragons
    There was a beast, proud and great.
    To no lord would he bow.
    His mighty strength did not abate
    (Do not ask me how.)

    One of his physical features
    Was his horrid claws.
    A ghastly array of them,
    On each of his formidable paws.

    Clad in armor, never clinking.
    Arrows snapped on his scales.
    He floated over armies, never sinking.
    An enemy in fishes' mail!

    And his tail was long, long as a river,
    Felling a house at one blow.
    It had spikes at the end,
    And was covered in scales, don't you know.

    Horns on his wedge-shaped head,
    Fire in his eyes.
    The blackened earth was his bed,
    His living room, the skies.
    
    For he had translucent wings,
    To lift him way up there.
    To circle burning house and hamlet,
    The wonder of the air!

    Terrible his five-foot fangs,
    Terrible his smoky breath.
    His wrath was the wrath of the sun on fire,
    His very word was death.

    He was a dreadful sight
    To see floating against the moon.
    Better run from your home,
    To see him was your doom.

    And yet, though malevolent, he was awesome.
    Even in causing armies to flee,
    His loveliness called to you, "Come!"
    He was a sight to see.

    His claws were sharp and crooked,
    Yet moonlight glinted on them.
    His scales were shiny, his eyes blood-red.
    A deadly beauty was in them.

    Green, black, brown, or red,
    He was pretty in the sky.
    Even picking over the bones of the dead,
    He made you wonder why

    Such a beautiful creature should be terrible
    Spreading death and fear.
    And it also made you question why
    Such fairness does not exist here.

    But that perfection will never come again
    For his fire was quenched.
    Caught in hatred's falling rain,
    His very spirit was drenched.

    So long ago he fled,
    Leaving burning town and overturned wagon.
    Nobody has seen him since,
    The amazing, marvelous, beauteous dragon.