A Lament for the Shattered Damsel of the Ruined Realm
Where once proud spires now lie shattered and torn,
A city ravaged by war’s cruel, fickle hand,
Stands mute ‘neath a sky that weeps o’er a fallen land.
Here echoes the dirge of souls in silent flight,
Their whispered laments entwined with endless night.
Upon a crumbled pavement, soft and bare,
There wandered she, a figure in despair;
Her name was Seraphine, with eyes of grief,
Reflecting sorrow’s tale beneath each leaf.
Destiny, with cruelty in its art,
Had sundered hope and left her heart apart.
In days of old, when verdant dreams did bloom,
Seraphine danced ‘mongst light and fragrant plume;
But Fate, a weaver grim of twisted yarn,
Had placed her in a fate that left her torn.
Her lover, gallant knight of noble mien,
Had pledged his heart ‘neath banners bright and keen.
They vowed to forge a future pure and grand
‘Mid fertile fields that spanned a hopeful land;
Yet war, unbidden, tore their fates asunder,
And forced their love to drown in molten thunder.
The clash of steel and cries of men at war
Laid silent witness to what was no more.
As armies clashed ‘neath skies of ashen gray,
Seraphine beheld her life decay;
The ruins bore the scars of brutal strife,
And each crumbled stone recalled a broken life.
She wandered lonely through the ghostly lanes,
Her steps the tolling dirge of all lost pains.
“Where art thou, love?,” she cried unto the wind,
That carried echoes of the life once pinned
On hopes as frail as dew at break of dawn,
Now vanished as the dreams that time had drawn.
Within the ruins, whispers low prevailed
Of a promise broken, a future jailed.
The ancient arches, draped in ivy’s green,
Now serve as tombs for memories unseen;
Their crumbling beauty speaks of days once bright,
Now shrouded in a mournful, endless night.
Each pillar, scarred by war’s relentless wrath,
Foretells the agonies along her path.
In silent hours, ‘neath a pallid moon,
The ghosts of yore through empty streets did croon;
A soft, melancholic, somber lay,
A requiem for souls lost on that day—
Their spectral forms a mirror to her grief,
A dance of sorrow, offering no relief.
Within a shattered hall of bricked despair,
Seraphine recalled the knight so fair;
His hands, once promised as her guiding star,
Now lay entombed beneath a fatal scar.
She saw his visage in each tear that fell,
A silent witness to a love that quelled.
“Would that I might hold his spirit near,”
She whispered soft, amidst the winds sincere;
“My heart, though rent, still beats with tender fire,
An ember lit by hope and deep desire.
But Fate, relentless, tears what time divides,
And renders sweet affection naught but tides.”
Her voice, both frail and resolute in pain,
Drew forth the tears like silver from the rain.
Beneath a domed and crumbling archway grand,
Where once a feast of dreams did time command,
She knelt to pray for solace, lost, unseen,
In halls where war had robbed her of her green
And youthful verve, replaced by bitter rue,
A legacy of love once pure and true.
The silent stones, though mute, did seem to weep,
As if to echo wounds too deep to keep;
They bore the marks of battles fought in vain,
And murmured secrets of a world in pain.
A symphony of grief in broken tone,
Resounded through the heart of this lone stone.
Thus, through the labyrinth of memory’s maze,
Seraphine did trace the long-lost days
When love was simple, unadorned by strife,
And every pulse of life did sing of life.
Yet now a bitter wind did chill her soul,
Reminding her that time exacts its toll.
A spectral figure came into her view,
A remnant of a hope she once once knew;
In shadowed guise, as faint as starlight’s gleam,
He spoke in tones that mingled truth with dream:
“Dear heart, although the tempest robs thee so,
The ember of thy love shall ever glow.”
Thus softly did his words like nectar pour,
Yet left her spirit yearning evermore.
But Fate, unyielding, pressed its hand once more,
And tore from her the remnants she adored;
For as she sought to hold that fleeting shade,
A blast—a final act of war relayed—
Did rend the ground and scatter hope like dust,
And break the bonds of every heartfelt trust.
In that accursed moment, ‘neath the ruined sky,
Her lover’s form did fade as war drew nigh;
The spectral whisper vanished in the gale,
And left her world engulfed by mournful wail.
Her heart, a chalice brimming over with pain,
Was left to weep in solitude again.
In endless tears, amid the desolation,
She wandered as a wraith without salvation;
Her every step, a dirge to lost embrace,
A solemn tribute to a vanquished grace.
The city, scarred by conflict’s ruthless hand,
Reflected all the grief of this lost land.
By shattered walls, in twilight’s grim retreat,
She met the gaze of ancient stone, discreet;
As if the stones themselves could understand
The torrent of despair that o’er her fanned
The flames of sorrow, burning soft and deep,
Where even time itself could not but weep.
“Farewell, my love, forever lost to night,”
She cried to stars beyond her mortal sight;
“Thy memory shall linger, ever bright,
A beacon in this never-ending plight.
Though war has torn apart our tender bond,
In dreams, our souls shall meet, and then respond.”
But silence reigned, an answer cold and grave,
For death has claimed the light it cannot save.
In final scenes, as dusk consumed the day,
She took her leave along the ashen way;
The haunting winds, like mournful elegies,
Carried her through realms of lost memories.
Each step a solemn march towards the end,
A journey where no mortal heart can mend.
Alone she walked amidst the ruins’ sigh,
A maiden with no hope left to reply;
Her countenance, a blend of pain and grace,
Revealed the scars time could not e’er efface.
For in her breast, the echo of that love
Would haunt her till she soared beyond, above.
And as the final light of day did fade,
So too did life’s once radiant masquerade;
Within the silent depths of crumbled stone,
A truth profound was etched in every bone—
That war, though scorned by duty’s grim design,
Could strip the soul of all that could divine.
The night embraced her with a chill so stark,
A benediction from the hand of dark;
Where in the gloom, her tender heart resigned,
Entwined with grief its weary fate combined.
Thus, with a final, tearful, whispered sigh,
She vanished ‘neath the sable shroud of sky.
Now stands the ruined city as a tomb,
Where echoes of lost love forever loom;
A somber monument to battles fought,
And to the tender hope that war has caught.
In every shattered stone and fallen leaf,
Resounds a mournful tale of grief and brief.
So let this elegy, with measured art,
Recite the anguish of a broken heart,
Wherein the beauty of a fleeting love
Was tragically eclipsed from realms above.
For Seraphine, a name enshrined in pain,
Remains a spectral link ‘twixt loss and gain.
Within these verses, may the reader find
The weight of time, the burden of the mind;
A world where war, in ruthless, grim decree,
Doth steal away the light of memory.
Her story, wrought in lines of aching grace,
Endures—a sorrow time cannot replace.
And as the midnight chimes its doleful knell,
The ruins whisper of a mournful spell;
An elegy for all things lost to fate—
A tale of war, a heart’s undone estate.
Thus, in this verse, let tears and silence blend:
The final parting, where all journeys end.
