I'm no expert on poetry, but I can see all the consideration that's gone in to these verses to tell a story. Lovely work! 😀

@sir-cabbage Thanks, Sir! 🙂 Both for the compliment and for being one of my mightily rare commenters... it feeds an artist's heart to have a spot of feedback. 

It's book club season at TLC so I'm back with some poetic musings on The Silver Chair! I will update as we continue...

---

Chapter 1/The Answer

They hadn't finished praying yet

When wonder came like a cliffhanger story,

Rich as jewels and sweet and sharp as peppermint candy.

For a moment they had cause to forget

Their sorrows in a blaze of strangeness and glory,

A sudden gift beyond any words they could bandy.

The heavy gray autumn was interrupted.

The words unspoken, already accepted.

---

Chapter 2/For Such a Time

Need met need like a handclasp

When the door you opened called you before you called.

You had wanted out of your enemies’ weak grasp,

But he wanted you willing to stand where evil prowled–

To go down from the mountains of the sun

Into the cold and dark and stone.

To reach past your earthly hopes and fears,

To liberate unearthly captive's groan.

Did you know you entered in a bargain

When you crossed the threshold of the call?

Did you know how much you'd dare and learn

By simple needing, when you breached the wall?

---

Chapter 3/ Red at Night

The sunset was red at the close of the day,

And so was the ship, as the King went away.

He was well in the evening of his years,

Who you'd seen bright as morning, before all his tears,

When you sailed to the lands where dawn was made;

When his murdered queen was a starry maid

And her son but a twinkle in the Lion's eye.

You didn't know who it was you spied.

You couldn't guess how many years had passed

In the few brief months since you saw him last.

Chapter 4/ Green Light

Know this: her poison shines.

She killed the light of stars.

She leads your heart beneath the mines.

She slinks between the signs

Spinning half-truths into cages’ bars.

Know this: her poison shines.

Her forked tongue, fanged tines

Leave deep and hidden scars.

She leads your heart beneath the mines.

Allies are sent where the giant dines,

Or sung to sleep and dream and join her wars.

Know this: her poison shines.

Only at night he pines,

By day no rebel hope may mar

Her lead, your heart beneath the mines.

Her music purrs and whines

And plays the Sun a fiery farce.

Know this: her poison shines.

She leads your heart beneath the mines.

---

Chapter 5

Looming doom will make you cheery

Though your views are rather dreary

Puddleglum, Puddleglum.

Too hopeful for a Wiggle's part,

Dour as smog but stout of heart–

Glum as puddles, Puddleglum.

You expect us to forget your name,

If we do it's to our shame

Puddleglum, Puddleglum.

Bravest Wiggle that I know,

Brought a quest you'll up and go

Bright as puddles lit with sun

Puddleglum.

Chapter 6

What counts as gentleness in Giants –

or civility in ogres?

Will they treat you as an equal, say,

Or keep you as a pet?

Are they numbskulls like the sort down south,

Or something nastier yet?

Some of their kindred will laugh and lob rocks,

Some build bridges carved over with eldritch things,

But what counts as gentleness in Giants?

What foolishness the message brings.

---

Chapter 7/Into the Hands of Giants

Now you're fumbling,

Suddenly tumbling

Down into the queerest hole.

Wind and weather

Drive you whether

You lose your grip or take control.

All events conspire to help you march right off the beaten path.

You needn't bother with signs if you wish to trade your birthright for a bath.

Come to the fire, little shrimps, he'll say.

Just let your worries melt away.

----

Chapter 8

Well and truly locked away

From the part you're meant to play,

Now it's time to grin a mask

And don a grand charade.

Somehow you must find a way

To caper childlike and be gay

While you know you fear to ask

A favor of the giant parade.

---

Chapter 9

Hand over hand you grope in the dark:

The dark of the mind,

The mind or the mines.

The danger has long since killed the lark:

The song of adventure

You'd hoped to find.

Lass, you make a lark of it yet

Playing for such high stakes as you get

From giants who think it's all fun and play

To throw a Talking life away.

Boy, you know the truth but partly

When you hear that macabre party

Tell the horrid tale they told

Of their deeds out in the cold.

Brightly playful are your garments,

Traitorous to the runaway.

Every windowpane and parapet

Threatens to give the game away

Until your hands link in the dark,

Far from the song of any lark…

But safer than you've yet been so far,

And on the track of your guiding star.

Chapter 10 (Underland)

Deeper now, and ever deeper,

Creeps the silentest of armies.

Grim Marchwarden marches you

To his grand and dreadful keeper.

Paws keep padding through and through

Lands of dim light, loveless loss;

Slow apocalyptic wonders

Few other mortals come across;

Until your heart will ache and ponder

Whether it really knew the sun.

Still, hold to your hard-won pace.

The hunt is on, you've found the trace.

---

Chapter 11

Every night he is sane:

And this is the horror of it.

It should have been a mercy,

A protection on his mind.

But herein comes the pain,

Sweat-dampened and teeth grit,

The stratagem of a lady who's so far from good and kind.

Helpless screaming,

Laughs and crooning,

Every godforsaken night.

Every night he is clinging

To memories with his last wit.

So long it's been since he has

Felt the Sun unmasked.

A slender hope it's bringing,

In the hours he can't forget:

Somewhere green trees grow still if he can break the ties that bind.

Plead your case now,

Prince of starlight,

Until you help them see aright.

One Name shall be your password

To a world that's good and bright.

Chapter 12 (Any World but Mine)

She denies there's any Sun

Because she wants to be it –

Center of all cosmic dance,

Muse of any spheres. 

She denies the Lion 

With a burning of regret

That she's too small to replace him,

For all her bitter years.

The world! The world is under me!

Her imagination cries.

She'd bind you to believe it

With her whispers and seductive sighs.

The universe she summons 

With her strumming is but fantasy.

She'd shrink your heart to fit it,

Say there's nothing that you cannot see.

Chapter 13 (Facts of the Matter)

After all enchantments

Are pretenses laid bare.

Truth comes rushing in

Like to a vacuum in the air.

We don't know yet

What we've next to do,

But we've had our next Sign

And we'll go with you.

Christian names are on our lips

For the first time since that School–

The Lion's on your shield

As ships skip past the harbour's rule.

All the works in the darkness are crumbling away

While we prepare for one last forray.

Chapter 14 (Shallow Lands)

Her kingdom was only a shallow thing, after all:

A solitary, pale and broken town,

Far from the Upper Lands, not truly Down.

Her minions, like you, a folk to pity,

Wrenched from another world, their hearth and home

Farther away than ever you'd thought to roam,

Until one freed gnome beckoned with bright eyes,

And gestured to a world of richest color–

Enough to pay for decades’ thoughtless dolor.

----

Chapter 15 (Homecoming)

Welcome, welcome!

See the dance!

Stars above

And snow below.

Laugh with joy,

You took your chance–

It led right back

To friends you know.

You have brought the Prince they lack

Through the bleak and smothering black

And now the dangerous days are done.

Welcome! From the Moon and Sun,

And all his mother's kin the Stars.

Come sit in the cave by the cooking fires.

Chapter 16

With but a drop of blood,

All your sorrow is reversing.

You glimpse that your adventure

Was but a grand rehearsing

For the day you, ageless, come back Home.

The King is safe. For now, you roam,

Wreathed in the glory of another world.

The flat of a sword and a whip unfurled

Reverse the fears from which you'd fled;

And all the horrors and wonders 

You witnessed in the dark

Are faded to a legend for children before bed.