The Son And The Painted Lion

An old man wanted to protect

His son as he’d a dream about

A lion (which he would expect

To kill him as it did turn out)

Though not as he imagined it;

For, in his dream a lion slew

His son, as he was hunting it,

(In fact the lion wouldn’t do.)

He tried sequestering the lad

In a fictive kind of fantasy

(Provided by this doting Dad

To spare him from reality.)

Surrounded by wild animals—

Albeit none of them was real,

By murals on the palace walls

Which had pictorial appeal.

Keeping the lad safely indoors

Prevented from going outside

For hunting lions out-of-doors

He kept his son secure inside.

The youth was so frustrated by

This effort to sequester him—

That stratagem would go awry,

So as to be the death of him.

That painting of this lion that

Was on a wooden palace wall

Enraged the lad for looking at

To kill the youngster after all.

He smote the mural such a blow

A splinter went under his nail

Which then became infected, so,

His health it was began to fail.

He’d died for no heroic cause,

That came out of a lion’s hunt,

Nor of the raging lion’s claws,

For all it was he did confront

Was just the likeness of the cat,

A false impression and a faint

Resemblance he was looking at

Depicted on the wall in paint;

Which showed the vanity of fear,

Arisen in the heart of one

Who took what merely did appear

To be a danger to his son,

And turned it into what would kill

His own beloved boy instead,

Who’d have to live against his will

And die—already being dead.