tale

...A Tale

Atop the tower, in chamber wide,
a kindly Lady sat content.
Alone she braved the cold, the night;
happiness within her hand.

Upon a day both bright and fair,
a dark horse appeared outside.
A Knight the tower approach did dare,
the Lady was afeared, and resolved to hide.

Yet words of kindness he did speak,
the Lady paused and glanced down.
She was afraid she would seem weak,
but she simply could not force herself to frown.

And so it came to be this way:
The Knight came many times.
The Lady by the window lay
Always eager to hear his rhymes.

A flame awoke within her breast,
For him who came she cared,
She smiled when seeing just his crest,
Her soul to him she bared.

The Knight bade her leap from her place,
and promised to catch her in his arms.
Then finally he could caress her face,
and keep her safe from all possible harms.

The Lady smiled and strongly blushed,
her heart secretly warmed to this request.
And yet her spirit felt strangely crushed,
for she liked her independence best.

Torn between passion and fear,
the Lady denied the plea.
She shed many an anguished tear,
for her state was far from glee.

And so began this awkward dance:
On the window ledge she'd teeter,
not too certain of her stance.
The days grew long and bitter.

And finally came the day when she
could not the flame in her heart abide,
She then exclaimed quite loudly,
that she wished to hurry to his side.

Back up she did to gain some speed,
and to the window rushed.
Outside the ledge stepped lovely feet,
and as she fell, all nature hushed.

Her heart was feather light with joy,
as she came closer to the ground,
This was no time for being coy,
What she unknowlingly searched for, she found.

But lo! No loving arms to break the fall,
The Knight rides away, is nowhere to be found!
The Lady is filled with grief, not gall,
Her fragile body hits the ground.

From jagged wounds red rivers flow,
the frail broken sinews cause great pain.
The air is as cold as in the land of snow,
from the heavens falls pouring rain.

She gathers her strength, and bites her lip,
into the darkness repeatedly she calls.
She cannot move even a fingertip,
the curtain of the night slowly falls.

She begs, she cries, with a soft broken voice,
yet no one who could hear is nearby...
Amidst the darkness there is no other noise,
The lady breaks down and wails: "WHY??????"

For what seems an eternity,
upon the courtyard thus she lies.
Amidst the pain and solemnity,
the Lady swoons and almost dies.

From forth the darkness come friends of old
and also quite few of new,
They give her blankets against the cold
and quench her thirst with dew.

They feed her morsels most delicious,
but to her all things lack taste,
She is not merely being capricious,
she feels her life is a waste.

They speak her fair, and gently carry
the Lady to her tower.
She urges them not to tarry,
asks to just be left in her bower.

And thus she lies till this day,
The chamber gloomy and dark.
In spring there is no smell of hay
nor can one hear a lark.

She ordered that the tower wall
Ten-fold be strengthened, like a tomb.
The structure stands: dark, proud and tall,
and everywhere within it sits gloom.

None can venture into the vast silent halls,
the gate is thrice blocked and thrice barred.
The grounds around, where the landscape rolls,
Like the lady's soul, are by darkness marred...