Dragon_poems.htm

There was an old dragon under gray stone;

his red eyes blinked as he lay alone.

His joy was dead and his youth spent,

he was knobbed and wrinkled,

and his limbs bent in the long years to his gold chained;

in his heart's furnace the fire waned.

To his belly's slime gems stuck thick,

silver and gold he would snuff and lick:

he knew the place of the least ring

beneath the shadow of his black wing.

Of thieves he thought on his hard bed,

and dreamed that on their flesh he fed, their bones-crushed, and their blood drunk:

his ears drooped and his breath sank.

Mail-rings rang. He heard them not.

A voice echoed in his deep grot:

a young warrior with a bright sword

called him forth to defend his hoard.

His teeth were knives, and on horn his hide,

but iron tore him, and his flame died.

From The adventures of Tom Bombadil

** by J.R.R. Tolkien **

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