The Lament Lawrence Wirries They called me to help in the middle of the night. A warrior by trade and knight by faith. A beast, they said, with the malice of the Devil terrorized the once gentle town of Ephesus. So I went to the hillside country, to Turkey, where the grass fields are like a sea and the town an island. The horrible beast, I caught with my eyes, was towering over a young woman wearing a gold pendant. So my courser ran swift, my lance couched, pierced the rough hide of Beelzebub with the lance of Saint Michael. So the victory was won but so it seemed, for evil lay there unredeemed. Bones, dry and fresh; large and small, Were strewn by the mouth of the cave thronged with necklaces and gold coins covered in dust. A sin unconfessed. And so I knelt in sorrow by the hide of its pinions, and thought it might have been better if it did not bleed. For evil was abided in this once quaint and quiet town, Nor is it pure now that it is gone.
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