The Summoning

Once, a midnight solemn. Sadly, while I pondered, weak and crassly, reading many volume of theology... While I wept with grief unspoken, questions gripped my mind unbroken... Softly through the silence, golden... Golden as the seraphs soar. "'Tis some vision," I did whisper, "sent to mock my aching core of the deep, deep loss of my father, the emperor. Go away!" I emplored. Now I remember, it was in the bleak pantheon without hinder, that blasted statue seated cast his shadow upon the tile floor. Hope had fled my soul forsaken, dreams were dead, and faith was shaken, Zeus had taken my beloved emperor. Till a voice, like thunder beaconed, my soul doth stirred and the stillness bore no more— Calling me by name so gently from beyond the mortal shore... Calling thus, "Young prince!" A gentle roar. To the pillars I turned in wonder, heart alight with holy thunder... Twas not Zeus, "Lord of Heaven, show Thy face and end this war!" Then the silence split asunder, and I saw—O sacred wonder! My father... My father beside a holy beacon of bright light that bore— Not a grim darkness or ghastly attentive gore, but a light I’d known before. Robed in lapis and crowned in mercy the One whom angels adore.