Upon the river's bank, where willows weep,
And cast their watery shadows, dim and gray,
A maiden sat, her sorrows buried deep,
And rent the silent fabric of the day.
Her hands, with fevered purpose, tore away
The letters bound with ribbon, now undone,
And gave their sweet-writ treason to the sun.
The tokens of a love she thought was true,
A ring of silver, and a lover’s knot,
Were tossed to drown beneath the morning dew,
To be with time’s forgotten things forgot.
A weary man, observing from his plot
Of field, drew near, and with a gentle air,
Asked what great sorrow made her seem so bare.
"O sir," she cried, "the heart's most bitter tale,
Is not of honest loss or fortune's scorn,
But of a gilded lie that must prevail,
And leave the trusting heart forever torn.
I met a youth, upon a brighter morn,
Whose honeyed words, like perfume on the breeze,
Did steal my soul and set my thoughts at ease.
"He praised my eyes, and swore their sapphire hue
Held heaven’s light, and promised me a prize
Of truth that none but lovers ever knew,
And captured all my senses with his lies.
He spoke of stars and distant paradise,
And with each vow, a new belief was born,
A field of fragile promises and thorn.
"He told of women that had loved him well,
And gave him jewels, fine beyond all price,
But said their love was but a transient spell,
Not true affection, but a cold device.
And I, a lamb prepared for sacrifice,
Believed his words, and thought I was the one
Whose steadfast love would finally be won.
"With martial words, he spoke of his defense,
His heart a fort, until I laid siege,
And told me he would break my innocence,
And claim my soul and love, and make his pledge.
My honor was a city on the edge,
And though I fought, with reason's fragile shield,
My trembling heart, to his own love, did yield.
"He swore his love was different from the rest,
That I, the final harbor of his plea,
Was worth more than the queens he had possessed.
He stole my love, and made my spirit flee,
And then, when he was finished, set me free.
He turned away, with nary a regret,
And let his promises and vows be met.
"And so I sit, with every tear and ache,
And every memory that fills my mind,
And know that I would make the same mistake,
And to his false-sweet words would be inclined.
Though reason warns, and wisdom's words are kind,
That sweet betrayal that his love has brought
Is all that I, in this new world, have sought."
She turned away, with nary a regret,
And let his promises and vows be met."
With a cold heart, as frost upon the stone,
He left my soul to find its way alone.
And now I know, though wisdom's words are kind,
That sweet betrayal that his love has brought,
Is all that I, in this new world, have sought.
With that, she rose, and from her mantle drew
A faded portrait, sealed with his false crest,
And kissed the painted image, old and new,
Then gave the river this unfaithful guest.
"Go now," she cried, and with her hand she blessed
The waters that should bear his image down,
And wash away the sorrow of the town.
"The shepherd's call, the gentle bleating sheep,
The river’s flow, the whispering willow’s sigh,
Cannot compare to passions buried deep,
Nor to the lover’s cruel and cunning lie.
For all the world, beneath this open sky,
Is but a stage where fools like me are cast,
To live and love, and break their hearts at last.
"His face was like a book, where I could trace
The chapters of a love I thought was mine;
The hero’s triumph, and the villain’s place,
All woven in a tapestry divine.
But now I know the plot, the foul design,
And see the ending, writ in words of shame,
And find myself a fool, to speak his name.
"Yet still I love, and love him to my pain,
And wish his hand would find me once again,
And whisper words of love, and then disdain.
So let the river take my tears and pain,
And wash them clean, and make me whole again,
Or let me drown beneath its watery bed,
And find, at last, the solace of the dead."
And yet for all this grief, my heart remains
A well-trapped bird that flutters at his name.
His falsest whisper, falling fresh as rains
Upon the parched, and newly-planted shame,
Would make this humbled spirit rise again,
And chase the ghost of what he used to be,
Until I find new ruin, and new plea.
The older man, with sorrow on his face,
Did shake his head at her most woeful plight.
"Alas," he said, "the heart finds little grace
Where passion makes a darkness of the light.
The very balm you seek is bitter plight,
And yet you drink it with a willful hand,
As if the false were truth within this land."
"But what is truth," the maiden sadly sighed,
"When all my years were built on promises?
My soul believed the tales his lips supplied,
The tender, false, and whispered tenderness.
He tore my world, and yet I must confess,
The ruin left is fairer to my sight,
Than any new and honest morning's light.
"He filled me up with emptiness and lies,
And left a hollow in my soul, and then,
He walked away, beneath the summer skies,
And found some other flower to condemn.
And I, a fool, would welcome him again,
And let him trample all my newfound grace,
To simply see the light within his face.
"So let the letters drift upon the stream,
And let the tokens sink beneath the flow.
The story’s end is not as it would seem,
For with each tear, a new desire does grow.
Though all of truth is buried far below,
This heart, though broken, has one single wish:
To be betrayed again, with his soft kiss."
This continues the lament with elevated, archaic, and more complex vocabulary, emphasizing the dramatic and all-consuming nature of the betrayal.
The firmament did mock my woeful state,
With stars that glistered in indifferent grace,
As if to scorn the ruin of my fate,
And chronicle the blighting of my race.
My soul, once verdant, is a barren space,
A desert where the arid breezes sigh,
Beneath the gaze of that ironic sky.
My spirit, broken, now doth dwell alone,
Upon the shards of vows that turned to dust,
A hollow shell, where vibrant life was known,
Now filled with echoes of a broken trust.
The vibrant hues of hope have turned to rust,
And joy's sweet melody is now a dirge,
Upon despair's relentless, bitter surge.
The days stretch out, a monochrome expanse,
Each dawn a painful mirror of the past,
Where phantom smiles and whispered words still dance,
A cruel reminder that too good to last
Was love's brief bloom, by winter's chill recast.
And in this solitude, a heavy chain,
The weight of sorrow and enduring pain.
Upon a knoll, where verdant grasses sere,
My spirit, a sepulchre of sweet decay,
Recalls the moment, pregnant with the tear,
I saw thy face, and gave my soul away.
Thy visage, a phantasm of brilliant play,
Was framed by locks like threads of woven night,
A fleeting star that captured all my light.
My mind, a crucible of memory's fire,
Revisits all the oaths thy lips had sworn;
Each honeyed whisper, born of false desire,
A fleeting solace from a life forlorn.
But now, those vows, like delicate petals torn,
Are scattered to the winds of harsh regret,
A bitter vintage, which I must drink yet.
Thy words, a syren's song, a wicked lure,
Did draw my vessel to the jagged rock
Of disillusion, which I must endure,
And feel my shattered self receive the shock.
The chiding river, with its stony mock,
Does seem to whisper, "Fool, to be so blind,
And trust in a deceitful, fickle mind."
O, that my heart, a frail and fragile thing,
Had not been caught within thy tangled snare,
And felt the agonizing, piercing sting
Of love betrayed, and hope turned to despair.
But I, an unsuspecting, foolish heir
To a realm of sorrow, must now endure,
This bitter draught, this poison, without cure.
In shadows veiled, my soul, a chrysalis,
Doth contemplate this venomous bequest,
A chalice filled with honey-sweet abyss,
And proffered as a test for my poor breast.
The guerdon of thy love, a hollow jest,
That leaves behind a torment, dark and cold,
More precious than the treasures of thy gold.
This dolorous heart, a plundered, barren town,
Retains the memory of thy feigned siege.
Thou didst possess me, with a victor's frown,
And then, departing, broke thy solemn liege.
And I, thy chattel, lost upon the sea,
Now drift upon the tides of my despair,
And breathe the salt of my own bitter air.
Thou wast a god, a titan, in my sight,
Thy voice the thunder of a nascent world,
Thy every glance a consecrated rite.
But in the end, thy banners were unfurled
To leave me shipwrecked, all my hopes unpearled,
A monument to love's corrosive art,
The desolation of a broken heart.
No respite comes to this tormented soul,
No sweet nepenthe for my shattered mind.
My reason, once in sovereign, full control,
Is now a castaway, a derelict left behind.
This labyrinthine anguish, by design,
Is built of promises, a gilded cage,
And I, imprisoned, watch my hope decline.
The lexicon of love is now a lie,
A dialect of calculated sound,
Each phrase a poisoned arrow from the sky,
Each tender word a trap upon the ground.
His artifice in sentiment was crowned
With feigned devotion, a celestial guise,
To hide the truth within his empty eyes.
Oh, were I but a creature of the clay,
A vessel with no purpose save to be,
To feel no pain when love has gone astray,
Nor mourn a future that was not to see.
But I, with intellect and memory,
Am forced to bear the burden of my plight,
And know the darkness that has quenched my light.
With such high-flown, grandiose rhetoric,
It is difficult to continue this poetic work
Without seeming like a parody of itself.
Yet, in truth, my heart is but a feeble thing,
A hollow shell, where vibrant life was known,
Now filled with echoes of a broken trust.
This labyrinthine anguish, by design,
Is built of promises, a gilded cage,
And I, imprisoned, watch my hope decline.
Thy visage, a phantasm of brilliant play,
Was framed by locks like threads of woven night,
A fleeting star that captured all my light.
His falsest whisper, falling fresh as rains
Upon the parched, and newly-planted shame,
Would make this humbled spirit rise again.
And chase the ghost of what he used to be,
Until I find new ruin, and new plea.
My mind, a crucible of memory's fire,
Revisits all the oaths thy lips had sworn;
Each honeyed whisper, born of false desire,
A fleeting solace from a life forlorn.
But now, those vows, like delicate petals torn,
Are scattered to the winds of harsh regret,
A bitter vintage, which I must drink yet.
Thy words, a syren's song, a wicked lure,
Did draw my vessel to the jagged rock
Of disillusion, which I must endure,
And feel my shattered self receive the shock.
The chiding river, with its stony mock,
Does seem to whisper, "Fool, to be so blind,
And trust in a deceitful, fickle mind."
And in this solitude, a heavy chain,
The weight of sorrow and enduring pain,
Are but a monument to love's corrosive art,
The desolation of a broken heart.
But what is truth, when all my years were built on promises?
My soul believed the tales his lips supplied,
The tender, false, and whispered tenderness.
With that, she rose, and from her mantle drew
A faded portrait, sealed with his false crest,
And kissed the painted image, old and new.
Then gave the river this unfaithful guest.
"Go now," she cried, and with her hand she blessed
The waters that should bear his image down,
And wash away the sorrow of the town.
"The shepherd's call, the gentle bleating sheep,
The river’s flow, the whispering willow’s sigh,
Cannot compare to passions buried deep,
Nor to the lover’s cruel and cunning lie.
For all the world, beneath this open sky,
Is but a stage where fools like me are cast,
To live and love, and break their hearts at last.
"His face was like a book, where I could trace
The chapters of a love I thought was mine;
The hero’s triumph, and the villain’s place,
All woven in a tapestry divine.
But now I know the plot, the foul design,
And see the ending, writ in words of shame,
And find myself a fool, to speak his name.
"Yet still I love, and love him to my pain,
And wish his hand would find me once again,
And whisper words of love, and then disdain.
So let the river take my tears and pain,
And wash them clean, and make me whole again,
Or let me drown beneath its watery bed,
And find, at last, the solace of the dead."
But no, to end is to release his thrall,
To find oblivion and to be unbound.
This exquisite torment, I would not let it fall,
But cherish it, a poisoned wreath, and crowned
Myself with it. And though my spirit, drowned,
Knows naught but sorrow, still it would not cease,
This bitter music that grants no final peace.
The aged man, with furrows in his brow,
Did listen to her piteous refrain,
And in her madness, saw a truth, somehow,
That passion, like a devastating rain,
Can quench the fire, yet leave a burning stain.
He saw her fate, her self-inflicted plight,
A moth that flutters to a fatal light.
And so she sat, a statue carved of grief,
Upon the riverbank, forever lost,
A prisoner to her own strong belief,
That in her ruin, she had paid the cost
Of love, and though her heart was winter-frost,
She would not yield, nor seek a lesser prize,
But gaze forever at her own dark skies.
To her monodic dirge, the atmosphere
Assumed a somber, lachrymose veneer,
Reflecting back her desolate despair,
The consummation of her mortal fear.
The senescent willow, a lugubrious peer,
Did drop its leaves, a rustling, final sound,
Upon the desecrated, hallowed ground.
Her psyche, once a palimpsest of glee,
Was now a codex, filled with cryptic pain,
A cartulary of what could never be,
A chronicle of his capricious reign.
The subtle poison of his suave disdain
Had permeated every fragile thought,
And left a wilderness where love had fought.
The river's ceaseless, melancholic flow,
The aqueous analogue of her own grief,
Carried her dreams to where the dead things go,
A final, desolate and dark relief.
Her heart, a synecdoche of human chief,
Did stand for every soul, a martyr's lot,
In love's forgotten, and most cursed, plot.
She saw the phantasmagoria of their past,
A fleeting pageant of illusions grand,
A fragile edifice, too fine to last,
Built on the shifting, penitential sand.
The cruel apotheosis of his hand,
That once did tenderly caress her hair,
Had left her shattered, in a wild despair.
Her eidetic mind, a tormenting domain,
Replayed the scenes of his perfidious guise,
Each whispered vow, a serpentine refrain,
Each tender glance, an anodyne of lies.
She saw his artifice with vacant eyes,
The subtle, choreographed, theatrical play,
That stole her peace and cast her soul astray.
The vernal world, a verdant, fertile space,
Had lost its chromatic, vibrant sheen;
Her desiccated heart found no solace,
In nature's languid, placid, sylvan scene.
The sun, a fiery orb, a tyrant queen,
Did burn with an acrid, sulphurous heat,
A bitter contrast to her life, now beat.
The flotsam of her love, a broken fleet,
Did drift upon the river's sullen tide;
A testament to promises obsolete,
And passion's final, desolate divide.
Her very being, hollowed out inside,
Was but a mausoleum of her past,
Where shattered hopes, like broken idols, cast.
No sweet release, no anodyne of sleep,
Could grant her mind a respite from its fray;
For in her dreams, the memories would creep,
And steal the final vestiges of day.
She saw his face, a beautiful display
Of perfidy, a mask of cold design,
And drank the dregs of sorrow, steeped in wine.
Upon this crag, where tempests rage and cease,
The jagged granite, stoic, stands alone,
A silent sentinel, in stark unease,
By forces elemental overthrown.
The winds, a chorus, in a mournful groan,
Whip the salt spray, a lashing, stinging veil,
Against the rock, in an eternal wail.
The ocean's breadth, a canvas, vast and deep,
Reflects the sky, in hues of storm and gray,
Where ancient secrets, in its depths, do sleep,
And tides relentlessly wear rocks away.
The gulls, like specters, in the fading day,
Scream their dissent, against the gathering gloom,
Forecasting tempests, in the ocean's room.
The spray-kissed lichen, clinging to the stone,
A tenacious life, defying the harsh clime,
A testament to nature's power shown,
Enduring trials, thr
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