TO YOU WHO READS

Hail and well met to you who reads

These dusty pages upon which I wrote.

To you I have a tale to impart

That you may keep the knowledge as yours.

There was something I had been afraid

To tell of my devotions many years ago,

Drowning in love, sick with love

For a princess with hair spun of gold.

‘I love her,’ I had oft-times told myself

When I sat alone by the pane and dreamed,

Yet I feared the words she may have drawn

In reply to such a stunning avowal.

So dreadful a game to share with the night

Amid the petals upon my knees,

A wildflower stem twirling, twirling

Between my trembling hands.

‘I will tell her’, said I and threw the flower down,

‘And take this gamble for her affections.

And whether it be in love or in sorrow,

Come first light I will know stillness.’

So I went to her, despite the walls,

And confessed to her my innermost soul.

She responded in a way with truth,

But that truth is one thing I shall not share.

I leave her answer in just my possession,

A bliss or hurt too delicate with words to break,

For whoever may find this verse

May someday feel my pain or delight.

Whether harmony or dissonance I felt,

Happiness or anguish, I can say

That one day one of these feelings

Will happen to you just the same.

Mayhap later on, mayhap years from now

You will know what I felt a hundred ago,

For I have sent this poem from Heaven

To the land far, far below.