I hear the mourning of the nightingale.
A song for silent sentinels incensed
Above the lensed and lensless eye that grips
The listless, stony shackle in the sky.

The heavens wheel their solemn dirges, pale;
Her family firm laments the firmament’s
Lacuna. Stellar tears, eclipsed, eclipse
The listless, stony shackle in the sky.

Orion yet commands I fly; he flails,
He raves Celestial doom—demands, relents
To nothing. She had sought apocalypse,
The listless, stony shackle in the sky.

I failed. I turned my back, I watched her die,
The listless, stony shackle in the sky.

Author's Notes:

A ballade about Celestia shortly after Luna's banishment. This one comes from the EFNW's Iron Author competition. I've never written pentameter before, so you can bet that extra foot worked hell on my tetrameter brain while trying to get out a coherent poem within 2 hours. For those curious, the three words for the prompt were "Arena, Telescope, and Envoy." I redid the line referencing what was the arena, cause it was a crappy line anyway, but the other two are still in there if you're daring enough to peruse.

Onward and Upward!