Ballad of a Broken Bell

A tale of Arthurian alchemy.

I. The Finding

It began in mist,
As many things do;
As the altar is formed
Of secret things true.

It began with a sound,
A faint chiming in the dim;
It signalled the end
Of a veil worn thin.

An alchemist lingered,
Peering over the heather,
Searching for a sacred stone
In crossroads of gloom and glitter.

A headland he descended to a gorge,
The roaring of waves receding,
And there he found a floating bell
By a shadowed estuary clinking.

A grasping hand extended,
A wistful heart found wanting;
The sweet bell fell silent,
A tool that was then taunting.

The mist then lifted
And the alchemist cried.
For the bell fell sharply
And on a stone it died.

With trembling fingers
He lifted his terrible prize,
And found upon its gleaming edge
A jagged crack before his eyes.

What monstrosity! What Devil!
Could defile such a treasure?
On his knees he knew the truth,
And his grief was without measure.

II. The Fixing

In hubris and in hope,
He started up again.
For he was an alchemist
Who could most materials mend.

Off he carried the broken bell,
Back over the headland brisk,
Then down along beach
And to his home he took this risk.

In his laboratory he laboured,
Long into the night,
Forging a river of gold
To heal the fallen bell's blight.

At the sunrise he thought it best
To sound the resurrected relic.
So when the eastern clouds were lit,
He held forth the bell and wrung it.

It was like wailing to his ears.
Then he saw what every jeweller fears:
His gold was naught but excrement
Beside this bell of all his sweat and tears.

For its substance was a fathomless hue
Of beauty beyond thought.
And never a note had been more true
Than what his ears in that mist had caught.

Thus the sun rose and the alchemist wept
For days that went uncounted.
Until once again he found his feet
And swore an oath to the bell, thus recounted:

'For a year and a day
I shall will to find a way
To ring this bell true --
Lest mist claim my mind through and through.'

III. The Forgetting

Well the days they made their weeks,
And the moons they came and went,
And the stars they walked their winking way,
And the alchemist was left still wanting, spent.

For there was no metal he could forge,
Nor essence he could transmute,
That would the bell make whole --
All further utterances that first chime did refute.

At length he grew enraged.
Longing led to despair.
He hid the bell away down deep,
Covering it with experiments less fair.

He lost his mind in lesser knowledge,
And the pursuit of lesser finding.
And so he sought to forget
That bell he found so binding.

He wandered up and down the beach,
Scattering the ash from his forge.
Many miles passed beneath his feet,
As he sometimes went even into the gorge.

Though he would not think it,
He often went there just to see
If any mist had returned
To the shadow of that headland free.

But the heather there was ever clear,
And he told himself he simply searched
Again for some new secret stone
In that estuary where intrigue perched.

All this continued one whole year,
One whole miserable cycle.
But on the final day his oath returned,
Overwhelming any other trifle.

IV. The Fighting

It was on that evening
That he spied from his dwelling
A mist filling the gorge,
And he started up, yelling.

Of a sudden he remembered,
And all his being was of accord,
As the alchemist searched
For the bell he had ignored.

A thunderous sound
Shook the headland afar
As the alchemist began running
From his door left ajar.

The sound came from the mist,
Or rather it was its source,
For a dragon in the estuary dwelt,
Claws crooked and scales coarse.

The mist then was a smoke
Spilling from its maw
As it thrashed and coiled
About a knight drenched in its gore.

For when the alchemist arrived,
The warrior had slain the beast,
And knelt then by its broken body
As blood and weariness increased.

'Hail, Brother,' spoke the knight,
'Have you water for this weary sheep?
For if I cannot drink at least a little
I fear I'll fall into a wakeless sleep.'

The alchemist, he turned about
In search of liquid and a vessel.
The estuary was too saline,
Though perhaps the bell could serve as kettle.

V. The Filling

'Surely you have saved me,'
Said the alchemist to the knight,
'By slaying this ancient beast
That dwelt so near my light.'

Though he wished the warrior to know
His gratitude was full,
He still could not a substance find
For his saviour to drink at all.

Then he saw that as the dragon bled,
It's blood was nearly clear ...
Under a sudden impulse,
To the creature he drew near.

He turned the bell upside down,
And held it under the dragon's wound.
It filled yet slowly with the stuff,
And the alchemist nearly swooned.

For as the blood filled the bell,
It filled the year-old crack.
For it was the same unknowable colour,
And the beauty of its healing left no track.

The bell was whole at last.
The cup was overflowing.
When he set it to the knight's parched lips,
There was no blemish showing.

The knight, he drank his fill,
Then took a long and even breath.
'Brother,' said he, clear and strong,
'By your faith I have conquered death.

'I saw you fill this cup with blood
And I could not fathom your design.
Then I tasted of it's substance
And behold, it was wine.'