"The Fading Autumn" by Brian Buckley

The Fading Autumn

They say he burned his life too bright to die
His blade was swift, his wrath was hot, and cold
The weight of strength and sadness in his eye
He wrote his name in stars across the sky.

I saw him last a tired man, and old
Not as the moon, but as the sun at night
The men today are eager, young and bold
But silver, ever silver - where is gold?

His countenance was onetime free and light
Where now that laughing face, so swiftly gone?
The days to him were evergreen and bright
Why now a beard of thin and ashen white?

All men are equal, said the rising dawn
It knew not what the years to come would bring
And pieces both, it's true, the king and pawn;
But which of them will sleep in Avalon?

How sadly, now, the minstrels come to sing
The children weeping, hardly knowing why
And caught between, the distant mountains ring
For Arthur, here, the once and future king!