Victims of Hope

What do the innocents of this world know of Hope?
They see a shining peace in it
A promise of happiness to come
Should they only reach.

But that Hope is like the reflected moon
So tangible it waits for us on the blackened still waters
While remaining impossible to truly claim.

Perhaps my eyes also saw this visage once
Shadowed as they were by the weight of war
And the promise of glory to come
With the sword in my hand.

I reached for that reflected moon
Confident as were my comrades
That we would conquer its grace
And promise of light.

Despair is not so cruel a mistress
Her dulcet tones will break a man down
And pull him screaming from his own mind.

But should we have been swayed by Despair
Tomorrow's sun might have shown us the lie of that reflection
And cast us into real golden light.

Instead we were driven by Hope
A slave to those promised tomorrows
That were only fleeting reflections in the water
And in the clash of blades and the spilling of blood
We saw those images ripple and disappear.

And so we lay as enlightened men
In the hour of our fall.

We believed ourselves to be strong
The future that drove us to pick up our blades
Told us we could have nothing
But victory's sweet release.

This hope that we once saw as beauty
Drove us to this end
Drowning in the moon's reflection.

We are merely victims of Hope
Far from the first
And surely not the last.