The Mariner’s Lament: A Ballad of Chains and Tide
A mariner, with tattered sails, did tread oblivion’s path.
The waves, like hounds of destiny, pursued his splintered prow,
And winds, the harpies of the deep, sang dirges for his vow.
Through brine and shadow’s clawéd grip, he glimpsed a spectral spire—
A temple, veiled in coral shroud, where drowned dreams conspire.
Its arches, wrought of ancient stone, with kelp and pearl entwined,
Rose grimly from the ocean’s breast, a labyrinth enshrined.
No mortal hand had chiseled there, no earthly flame had shone;
Its altars bore the scars of tides, its hymns the whale’s lone moan.
Yet drawn by whispers, soft as graves, the sailor crossed the sill,
Where echoes of forgotten gods yet haunt the hollowed hill.
“O wanderer of wayward seas,” a voice like surf arose,
“What brings thee to this sunless crypt, where even hope must froze?
Dost thou, like Icarus, crave wings to pierce the vaulted night,
Or dost thou seek the chains that bind the heart to endless blight?”
The mariner, with trembling lips, replied unto the gloom,
“I seek the key to break the seal that locks me in this tomb.
For seven years, the gales have borne my soul through desolate waves,
Yet freedom’s shore remains a myth, mocked by grinning graves.
I’ve bartered breath for compass points, and starved on siren lies—
Now grant me leave to rend the veil, or here my spirit dies.”
The temple sighed, its pillars groaned, as shadows coalesced
To form a figure, gaunt and crowned with seaweed on its breast.
“I am the warden of the deep, the guardian of vows,
The scribe of tides that etch their laws on every mortal’s brows.
Thy freedom’s price is writ in blood, in sacrifice untold—
To sever bonds that time hath forged, thy heart must first grow cold.
Behold!”—it gestured toward a pool, where visions swam like eels—
A maiden, fair as dawn’s first blush, trapped ‘neath a glassy seal.
Her face, a ghost of bygone days, her hands pressed to the pane,
Her voice, though mute as moonlit snow, screamed through the mariner’s brain.
“Aeliana!” he cried aloud, the name a blade of fire,
“Thy fate was sealed by my own hand, thy pyre my damned desire!
I swore to brave the maelstrom’s wrath, to pluck thee from the storm,
Yet left thee to the jaws of death, my love a shattered form.”
The warden’s laugh, a hollow chime, rang through the dripping vault:
“Thy grief is but a fragile thread in fate’s unyielding assault.
To free her, thou must take her place, entombed in liquid night,
Or flee, and bear her silent scream till stars renounce their light.”
The sailor knelt, salt tears alloyed with brine upon his cheek,
And kissed the phantom of her palm, where glass met anguish weak.
“I’ll pay the tithe,” he whispered low, “though hells and heavens bleed.
Unclasp her soul from this abyss—let my thralldom feed
The hungers of thy loveless deep. But mark, eternal shade:
If love be not the key thou claim, then let thy realms degrade.”
The warden’s grin, a crescent knife, split darkness like a wound,
As chains erupted from the void, the mariner’s doom enshrined.
They coiled his limbs in iron hymns, they anchored him to stone,
While Aeliana’s form dissolved, to air and foam unknown.
Her final glance, a fleeting dawn, pierced through the crushing veil—
A whisper, “Live,” as currents claimed her lover’s futile wail.
The temple shuddered, sank once more to depths no light may tread,
And silence, vast as ruined hopes, embraced the ocean’s bed.
Yet sometimes, when the moon hangs low, and waves in mourning crest,
A voice intones through coral halls, where two hearts found no rest:
“What price, the wings of liberty? What cost, a soul unchained?”
The deep replies with endless blue, where love and loss remain.
Thus ends the tale of him who chose the prison of the brave—
A martyr to the siren’s truth: the freest heart’s a slave.
