He dwelt in his deep darkness, underneath
the Paris Opera House. He hid his face.
His mask by his own mother was bequeathed;
she never let him close, to give embrace.

His music was his only love in life;
when he found one whose music was her creed,
he loved her, wishing she would be his wife,
but Erik's faceless love she did not heed.

So she forsook him for a headstrong youth;
like Judas, she betrayed him with a kiss,
but he still loved her when he learned the truth.
To love Christine was all he knew of bliss.

... ...Yet, when her tears showed her consent to wed,
... ...He let her go, espousing death instead.

Author's Note: This was written in early 1992. I was much younger then and hadn't been writing for very long, so it might be a bit simplistic. It's a Shakespearean sonnet, which means it must have a very specific rhyme scheme and meter.

The rhyme scheme goes like this: ABAB, CDCD, EFEF, GG

(The two "A" lines rhyme with each other, and the two "B" lines, and so forth).

The meter is iambic pentameter, which means there are five stressed (or accented) syllables in each line. The "iambic" part means that there's an unstressed syllable before each stressed one:

da DAH, da DAH, da DAH, da DAH, da DAH. Like that.

(Oh, and I had to add the dots at the end because the final rhyming couplet should be indented, andFFN doesn't allow indentation.)

It's a bit of a change of pace from my song parodies! It's serious, and based on the original novel as opposed to any "lesser" versions of Erik that may be floating around. And as I said, it's a little simplistic in the wording one of these days I might rewrite it. In the meantime, I thought maybe some of you folks here might like to see it. Enjoy!