The Parting of the Wandering Knight
A lone knight roves o’er dunes of endless sand,
His heart bereft of hope, enshrouded fear,
Yet led by dreams woven by Fate’s own hand.
No banner flutters here ‘mid barren waste,
Nor distant herald sings of valor bright;
In solitude, his soul is deeply chased
By spectres of a lost and long-lost light.
O’er shifting dunes where time itself seems still,
He treads the path of weariness and woe,
Each step a dirge upon the cursed mill
Of fortune’s dance—a sorrow’s ebb and flow.
Remember now the gleam of former days,
When noble visions graced his heart’s estate,
Before the cruel tempest broke in ways
That left him marooned in a mournful state.
Beneath a star that shimmers cold and true,
He finds—by chance or fate’s unyielding art—
A relic of his past he once knew,
A signpost in the darkness of his heart.
“O silent orb,” he wearily intones,
“Thou art the witness to my woeful plight;
Reveal to me, though in despair I moan,
A beacon in the everlasting night.”
The star, unruffled by his fervent plea,
Gleams as a silent, distant, cryptic sign;
Yet in its radiance, one truth does decree—
That hope, alas, has worn its final sign.
Thus travels he, the knight of broken dreams,
Across this sea of sand with heavy tread;
Each footprint etched a tale of bygone themes,
Of battles fought and words forever unsaid.
In visions of his youth, a garden bloomed,
Where laughter danced beneath the ancient oaks;
Now memories lie in ruins, still entombed,
As bitter winds recall the phantom jokes.
“Fate, why dost thou rob me of thy grace?”
He laments, as twilight claims the dying sun;
A solitude reflects upon his face,
Where once resided hopes now undone.
Amid the desert vast, the knight espied
A solitary bloom of crimson hue,
A symbol of a truth so long denied—
That beauty lingers even ‘mid the dew
Of sorrow’s realm, though fruitless if desired,
For every blossom soon to fade and die;
Thus does the nature of lost hope conspired
To mock the dreams that never reach the sky.
As twilight deepens into sable night,
A murmuring wind doth whisper soft and low:
“Farewell, dear knight, entomb all hope in plight,
For even stars must yield to sorrow’s blow.”
So spake he to the wind, with eyes agleam
Of hardened resolve, yet trembling with regret:
“Must I, forlorn, abide this woeful theme,
To wander endless realms of deep debt?”
And in the echoes of that whispered sound,
A spectral voice arose from dunes afar,
That sang of memories, fragile and profound,
Of loves lost under fate’s descending star.
“Good sir, in days of old, thy sword did gleam,
An emblem of the chivalrous and true.
But even heroes, in the twilight’s dream,
Must bow to time that bids all valor rue.”
Thus bound by destiny’s relentless hand,
He halted ‘mid the vast and quiet plain;
Before him stretched the barren, fatal land,
Where every hope succumbs to endless pain.
Lo, as the star ascended in the sky,
Its silver gleam unveiled a fated truth:
A final farewell, with naught left to try,
That in this night, hope would relinquish youth.
He knelt upon the scorching, yielding sand,
In silent prayer to memories long sown;
A requiem for dreams that slipped like sand,
For battles lost and victories unknown.
“Adieu, dear hope, thou art but fleeting dust,
That fortune scattered to the winds of time;
I lay to rest each noble, earnest trust,
And bid farewell to dreams now so sublime.”
What mortal man can master destiny
When spectres of the past doth coldly call?
For in each breath there lies a tragedy,
A slow decay that shrouds both heart and all.
Thus spoke the knight, whose spirit worn and raw,
Was tempered by the agony of loss;
Each word a cinder from fate’s cruel draw,
Each sigh a toll for love bereft of gloss.
In that vast desert where the light grows dim,
The knight recalled a voice of gentle grace,
A love once pledged from heart’s eternal rim,
Now vanished like a dream in time and space.
Beneath the star’s unblinking, stark decree,
He saw the visage of a lost dear hand—
A silent farewell, whispered by the breeze,
That spoke of sorrow none could understand.
“Thou wert my hope, my beacon in the night,
Yet now, beneath this endless void of pain,
Thy memory dims like a fading light,
And leaves my soul to wander in vain.”
He murmured, though the wind defied reply,
“My heart shall pledge to memory thine alone;
Yet sorrow fills the vast, eternal sky,
For hope, once bright, has turned to bitter stone.”
Thus in a hushed and ghostly reverie,
The knight embraced the truth that he must part:
A farewell borne beneath destiny’s decree,
A given end to every love and heart.
The desert listened, silent as the tomb,
While stars bore witness to his woeful art.
Each grain of sand a memory of doom,
Entombing dreams that once did bloom with heart.
“O time, that steals away the cherished past,
Why leave me to behold this mournful fate?
When all my hopes are like the sands amassed,
They slip away ere I can e’er elate.”
In echoes of the night, his narrative
Unfurled in verses sharp with majesty,
A tale of loss—of future turned so grave,
Where dreams entombed in sable misery.
The knight’s lament, like dirges of the wind,
Resounded ‘cross the barren battlefield;
For every tear a lost hope had rescinded,
And every sigh a promise left unhealed.
The star, a constant in the dark expanse,
Gleamed coldly as it watched his somber plight,
And in its silent, impassive glance,
Approved the sorrow of this fated night.
A final sermon from the heavens’ throne,
A tribute to the dreams that will ne’er renew,
Declared that hope in mortal hearts was sown
And reaped in pain, as all good fortunes do.
With trembling hands, he traced the sands so wide,
Recalling tender vows once sweetly sworn;
Yet now no solace in that land abide,
But only grief that marks the soul forlorn.
“Farewell, dear hope,” he cried unto the night,
“And fare thee well, ye dreams that soared so high;
I cast thee in the winds of endless blight,
To join the shadows ‘neath the starry sky.”
Thus did the lonely knight beyond recall
All joys entwined with life’s ephemeral breath:
Within the depths where sorrows rise and fall,
He found the measure of his certain death.
For in this vast, unyielding desert scape,
Where every breeze sings dirges of despair,
The lingering ghost of hope doth quickly drape
Its sorrow o’er his soul with grim affair.
No knightly quest, no valor’s noble sword,
Could retrieve those hopes now lost to time’s decay;
The horizon mourned with every silent word,
As fate decreed that love must fade away.
The final scene unfolds ‘neath cosmic beams,
A mirage of dreams recedes into the past;
Beneath the star, his farewell softly gleams,
A dirge for hope that was too frail to last.
“Adieu,” he whispers to the waning light,
A farewell hushed by winds both grave and stark;
The night enfolds him in its endless night,
And bids him join the silent, endless dark.
Thus ends the tale, in tragic, somber tone,
Of one whose heart bore hope beyond all chance;
A knight, in search of dreams now overthrown,
Who, in farewell, found naught but mournful trance.
His tale shall echo in the winds that wail,
A cautionary ode of hope miscast;
In every grain, his sorrow shall prevail,
A legacy of dreams forever past.
And so the star burns on with ghastly grace,
Its light an elegy on barren land;
A mourning beacon for the knight’s lone pace
Who learned that love and hope do not withstand.
In final act, the desert claims him whole,
A soul entwined with fate’s unyielding art;
Within the silent, endless, sable shoal,
He leaves behind his ever-weary heart.
Yet now, dear reader, mark this woeful song:
For hope, though lost in sands of destiny,
May yet inspire those who travel long
The trials of life and meet adversity.
But every hope that dared to rise and shine
Must face the dusk as day must yield to night;
And in the vast, unyielding sands divine,
The knight succumbs beneath despair’s delight.
Thus, with a final, echoing adieu,
Beneath the star’s unblinking, ghostly gaze,
The wandering knight bids life his last adieu,
And vanishes into the eternal haze.
