Hades, Hades, Lord of the Dead,
Who speaks in the voices of all that’s been said,
Has fathered a child, so the Furies say,
A spawn of bruised shadow, bloated and grey.

The child’s pale eyes glow an eerie, jade light,
While destruction and doom it coos with delight.
Mortals and gods fear the babbling, bald babe;
The mewling creature come to see the world unmade.

It is told that its piercing, exhausting, frail wail
Brings despair to yon virgins and makes the stoutest hearts fail.
And one touch, brief and simple, withers all wills, brings decay;
That the cavern-bred child devours every sun-started ray.

Hades’ child, scourged heir of the vast underworld,
Wrought to bring horrors, before which warm blood curls.
Its existence portends all’s looming death,
A chilling reminder of coming cold, final breaths.

None yet knows the limits of pain a child can hold,
Nor to what depths that pain can grow and unfold.
So we wrap in torrid tales this cursed entity,
To swaddle and soothe it to obscurity.