Between glade and river and dell I lay,
Woken from a timeless, dreamless sleep.
I rose and strode forward,
Led by a force beyond my strength,
Back through lands I had stumbled past in the night.

Darkness had become like light to me,
Yet like a veil this night bewildered my sense.
And with a sudden burst of beauty,
The vision was lifted,
The path made clear before me,
To a shimmering glade in the twilight.

Shadows flickered in the light, yet there was no flame,
Beautiful figures weaving a song in dance,
More intricate and wonderful than ever my dreams had conjured.
My only desire was to remain forever in the brightness of the clearing,
Yet the power that brought me to this place
Compelled me to sink into the gloom,
For my time had not yet come.

And I remained there, frozen in the sight of perfection,
A figure for the moment defeated, waiting for the appointed hour,
Crouched beneath a darkened tree.
The people danced on and on,
Unaware that in the corner I still sat,
My eyes brightening with each passing moment,
Spirit rising with each thought.

Suddenly, a noise crept up behind me on a path hidden from my sight.
My first thought was to vanish into the shadows,
But drawn to the sound and its innocence,
I remained a pale night in the twilight.

It was a woman, in raiment the darkest of blue.
She passed me by, her dress brushing my face,
Pausing only a moment, she disappeared the way I had come.
Deep inside me, I knew my time had come,
And an age and a day must have passed
For no such beauty could have been
In the world I left behind.

Without looking back, I had risen,
And left behind the new land that had become my home.
I pursued her, calling the only names I knew,
Fair words of my ancient tongue that could do no justice.
But ahead, all around, shadows were rushing forward.
They passed me by,
Malice in their every breath.

I drew a gem from my cloak, and the shadows fled from me,
Though I knew not from whence the jewel came.
Ahead of me, I glimpsed the darkness gathering again,
And at the edge of sight a failing light atop a blue figure.
I ran, wielding the light beyond all hope, with a hidden reserve of strength.
My stride lengthened, and the darkest night fled,
Terrified, bewildered, utterly defeated.

Her eyes fell on me as I climbed the hill to her refuge,
And closed,
And I held her tightly, more closely than my dearest wisdom.
The darkness gathered again, redoubled its strength, and I led the way,
She in my right hand, light in my left.

My spirit soared as we ran, light and warmth rising endlessly,
Until it smote the black night, bringing it to utter ruin.
Around us the light peaked,
And I saw her at last in the fullness of her beauty.
Years of care and toil had left their mark,
Yet still to me more fair was she than every daughter of kings to be seen in an age of journeys.
Her hair, deeper than the wood, likened to a crown streaming past her shoulders.
Bright were her eyes, holding me, welling up to a spring of wisdom ages old,
Longing to release the love of a thousand dreams.

I bowed low to the ground, rose, and offered her my left hand.
I placed the gem in the midst of her forehead, and, as if by magic,
There in my hand were the priceless jewels of the great kingdoms,
Rings, a necklace, a bracelet.
I presented them to her,
And, not taking her eyes off me, she put them all on.
I drew from my cloak a dress,
A white as bright as the blue had been dark.
She stood there, clad in the works of the great,
No less would have been worthy.
These gifts of nature were destined for her,
And she for them,
And I for her.

Above, the sky darkened, and the moon shimmered on her brow,
And I sang a song to the twilight,
To her,
In so many words I let it be known that
Her coming to me was as a drop of water to a barren land,
That though I was changed forever,
To be loved by her would be beyond the tongues of all peoples.

In response, a voice echoed,
Soft as the course of the river, piercing as her eyes,
So beautiful that the water seemed to speak.
But the sound came from her,
From the one whose hand clasped mine.

Together we sang, longing for each other,
All hopes and dreams answered.
Winding through tree and stream our song wandered,
And we followed,
Listening only to our voices before us and our trembling hearts,
For our old worlds had passed away,
And all that remained were each other.

The clearing had returned,
And still the dancers went on.
The place I had sat in darkness was nowhere to be found,
Indeed, there was no gloom, all lifted when she returned from shadow.

We joined in the song, dancing a ballad of parted sorrow and found love.
And just as the night had fled from the jewel on her forehead,
The others slowly faded away,
Leaving us alone, back where we began,
Yet in a new world and age,
Without dark, devoid of fear, filled with love.

When the music faded, we lay upon the glade,
Silence unbroken, not even by my breath,
For she had taken mine away.
Watched the stars fade and the darkness turn to grey,
Heavy heart knowing the approach of dawn,
And of a parting too sorrowful for the world to endure.

Those eyes, holding me to the last, told me she knew the truth,
That earth must weather this parting,
That could they know of it,
The world would weep.
Her eyes I could not bear to break,
To see tears stream down her face.
I wiped away their beginnings,
And we made a vow, a promise to return,
I from my journeys, and she from her wanderings.
We would sing and dance in dreams,
Be with each other in sleep,
Live only when together.

More gently than the approach of day I kissed her,
Placed but one rose in her palm,
Drenched by the morning and by my secret tears.
We held onto it, our fingers laced as one,
Clasped together with an unfailing love.

She lidded her eyes and wept,
A single tear falling into my hand,
Warming it forever, even in my waking world.
Drawing close to me, she looked up into my eyes,
Streams of emotion now flowing down both our faces,
Never wanting to concede to the truth,
To reality.

I felt the cold, hard soil beneath me again,
Between rock, tree, and stream,
Barely lit by the rising sun.
The waking world called me back.
I rose, and turned from my path,
And began the search for a shadowless glade,
For her,
To give the only relics worth keeping,
My love, and the stem of the most precious rose.