At dawn's first light, the sable sky
Turned a dark crimson hue
And gleaming stars beyond the clouds
Vanished from sight and view.

A fat grey toad croaked, rasped and hissed
Within the woods below.
As it stood guard over an egg,
A gift from long ago.

With a 'clack-a-clack!', the egg did crack
Its shell shattered apart,
And as it did, the toad dropped dead
Of a fearful, frozen heart

Within the egg, a pair of eyes
As sanguine as the sky
Opened up wide, then gleamed in glee
As the world around did cry

In terror and foreboding dread
The forest beasts did flee
As that which was the bane of man
Did finally come to be.

A thousand spikes snaked up its back
From base of neck to tail,
Its body clad in glaucous scales
And feathers deathly pale.

A hook-like beak and fork-like tongue
Lashed out in vengeful ire
While talons wicked, swift and sharp
Glinted with dark desire.

The beast's first breath was air brought in
And venom blasted out
As vapour, dark as night, seeped from
That crooked, beaky snout.

The deathly mist then swept across
The grass, the earth, the trees
And its mere touch did blight them all
With death, plague and disease

Fruit rotten black dropped to the ground
From a leafless canopy
Rivers turned green, grass wilted grey
and maggots writhed in glee

In corpses fresh of deer and fawn
Dead flesh and skin and bone
The sanguine eyes had met their gaze
And chilled their hearts to stone

This beast is one we all should fear
For it cannot be slain
To fight what kills with just a gaze?
All efforts are in vain.

It kills with breath, it kills with claw
Its strikes swift as a storm
The bane of man walks earth again.
The basilisk reborn.