Hatching of a Dragon
                   The green egg gleams
                   As it lays in the cave.
                   How giant it seems!
                   You have to be brave

                   To wonder at the size
                   Of the creature inside.
                   Run it over with your eyes.
                   If you will but abide

                   Beside the egg and wait
                   For it to hatch
                   It won't be late.
                   Suddenly, something will smash.

                   The egg is breaking, the shell
                   Falling. A baby is born.
                   Something pokes through; you can tell
                   It's a horn.

                   The horn's part of a pair,
                   Both tinged with glowing green.
                   Then follows not hair,
                   But the largest head seen.

                   The eyes are shining,
                   Larger then you.
                   Like gems gleaned from mining,
                   They're hard too.
                   Following is the body, scaled,
                   Snaky, graceful, tough.
                   In armor it's mailed.
                   Don't the scales look rough?

                   The forelegs are coming now,
                   As are the powerful paws.
                   The legs, folded in a bow,
                   The feet, tipped with claws.

                   The shoulders come into view.
                   Dangling from them are wings.
                   The dragon can't fly (it's new)
                   So right now they're useless things.

                   But in the future it'll fly.
                   One day its wings will spread.
                   It will spring into the sky
                   And soar far overhead.

                   Past the wings the body
                   Appears, slinking
                   With easy grace. Terrible is he,
                   You find yourself thinking.

                   But still you feel
                   Awe at the sight of the dragonlet.
                   He's beautiful, he's real.
                   Some people have never met

                   A dragonet or dragon.
                   And if dragons did exist,
                   These people would jump on bandwagons
                   Saying we can't coexist.

                   All of this you know,
                   So it's no big surprise
                   To feel chilled to the bone
                   As you gaze in a dragon's eyes.

                   The shell rips and cracks.
                   The hind legs emerge,
                   Then the tail, in the very back.
                   The world has a dragon on its verge.

                   The reeling green croons,
                   Shaking its head.
                   When it sees you it swoons,
                   In a faint falls dead.

                   But it is quickly up,
                   Shaking the shell from its wings.
                   It gambols away like a pup.
                   In it instinct sings,
                   
		   Urging it to seek and find
                   Its breath, its deadly flame.
                   It won't be gentle and kind.
                   Humans will give it a name

                   As it flies up and down
                   The country, eating meat;
                   As it destroys towns
                   Until, in millennia, it meets

                   Its death. At last
                   You turn from the crag on
                   Which the spell held you fast,
                   The spell of the birth of a dragon.