The Cave of Lost Dreams part 2

Continued............

"Ah! I see it's the scroll you seek",

"Enchanted by the cave's mystique".

"The scroll has only twice been previously opened.",

"Well I must have deserved it" the prince reckoned."

The prince reached out and took the scroll,

As himself, he could no longer control.

The old man retreated, yet said nothing,

His strange manner indicated something.

Finally he spoke, his manner grave, voice commanding,

The prince wondered what would he now be demanding?

"People have killed, been killed for the cave."

"And it's secret lies beyond the scroll I gave."

"Even so, what makes ye think ye'll find it?"

In ominous silence he stood, facing the twit.

"It invokes not in men mere curiosity.",

"It beseeches in them vulgar brutality."

The prince could now visualise in his head,

Blood being shed and entire armies dead.

He looked at the scroll, expressions grim,

Took a deep breath, handed it back to him.

The prince was nihilistic all over again,

The cave was indeed far beyond his domain.

He had finally looked forward to something,

But all his elation was chipped down to nothing.

Then for the first time in a while the old man smiled,

His expressions returned back to being soft and mild.

"Noble prince is thy dream this short lived?"

"That ye won't get up once you've tripped?"

"But would reaching the cave do me any good?",

"For it's a place of beauty, nothing else I've understood."

"My father's kingdom stretches far and wide.",

"With landscapes that hath left men open eyed."

"The cave of lost dreams.." The old man began,

As if it were all a part of some master plan.

"The cave of lost dreams or as it is said,"

"Is a place where dreams go once they're dead."

"But what's in it for me, the prince bluntly enquired",

"It holds all that thou heart once deeply desired."

"Happiness ye shall find of all sorts and kind",

"Wasn't that what thou were dying to find!?"

And yet again the old man's mystical ways,

Left the prince aghast, without a phrase.

The old man handed him back the scroll,

"Ye are now fit enough to pursue thou goal."

He turned to the door to depart at last,

"Who are you?" The prince suddenly asked.

The old man halted, his hand on the doorknob,

The prince's heart started to violently throb.

He turned around wearing a strange smile,

That sent a chill down his spine for a while.

"I'm the guardian of the cave I just told you,"

Opened the door and went straight through.

The prince went back and sat on his bed,

And reflected upon what the old man said.

He then opened the scroll after all,

Which hath never failed to enthrall.

What he saw of it eluded him,

But nevertheless excited him.

For it was a riddle like none he had seen,

And so adamant to solve one he'd never been.

On a parched, old paper with plush black ink,

Was written something it'd take  years to think.

For an ordinary man perhaps but not him,

Cause solving it had now become his whim.

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