The Spectre’s Canvas

The forest hums with ancient tongues in fog that clings like graves,
Where willows weep their silver notes o’er long-forgotten braes,
A thousand eyes in bark reside, their gaze like splintered glass—
Yet still he walks with trembling hand to find what none may pass.

Three nights he’d wandered, lost and lorn, through mists that stole his breath,
Chasing visions half-remembered, dancing twixt life and death,
When lo! Through veils of ivy thick there gleamed a spectral light,
A figure wreathed in moonbeam gauze emerged from endless night.

Her hair a cascade of midnight’s sigh, her eyes twin pools of storm,
In her wake, the oaks did bow as to some primal form.
“O mortal steeped in mortal ache,” her voice like winds betrayed,
“Why seek you here where inspiration’s springs to ashes fade?”

“I hunt the face that haunts my dreams,” the artist low replied,
“Where shadows melt to living fire and truths in darkness hide.
My brushes thirst for hues unborn, my soul for visions pure—
Yet all I paint turns dust and void, a wound that knows no cure.”

The spectre smiled—a crescent sharp—and stretched her phantom hand,
“Then walk with me through memory’s veil to art’s forbidden land.
I’ll gift you sights no mortal dared to fix on fragile scroll,
But pledge your heart to beauty’s thrall, and let despair take toll.”

Through groves where time lay fractured, they trod on sapphire streams,
Past clockwork birds that sang reversed of shattered hopes and schemes,
The air grew thick with petals black that fell like orphaned cries,
As stars above them pulsed and throbbed—great watchers in the skies.

“Behold,” she breathed, and with her touch, the world dissolved to flame,
A thousand suns in chains of gold, each bearing nature’s name.
The painter wept at colors raw no human tongue could tell—
Vermilion born of phoenix woe, the blue where seraphs fell.

For seven days and seven nights, he danced with brush aflame,
Capturing her whispered truths in strokes no art could tame.
Her form became his constant muse, her laugh his chapel bell,
Yet deep within his fevered heart there stirred a silent knell.

“Beware,” the ravens croaked in tongues from iron perches high,
“The muse who grants eternal sight demands a lover’s eye.”
But lost in labyrinthine hues, he deemed their warnings vain—
What mortal could resist the kiss that turned his nightmares sane?

At last, when moon wore widow’s veil and winds grew sharp with spite,
The spectre clasped his calloused hand beneath the tree of blight.
“Now seal our pact in blood and vow,” she hissed with lips undone,
“Immortalize my face in art, and we shall breathe as one.”

He mixed his life’s essence with oils of yew and thorn,
And painted her with trembling brush from dusk till spectral morn.
As final stroke met canvas stretched, the woods inhaled—then stilled—
Her laughter froze like shattered glass, her radiance distilled.

“Fool!” screamed the earth as roots burst forth to bind him to the soil,
“Her beauty was deception’s fruit, plucked from betrayal’s toil.
You gave the void a mortal name, clothed night in day’s disguise—
Now guard your masterpiece alone till time itself dies.”

The clearing emptied of her light, of whispers soft as down,
Leaving but the cursed portrait and thorns for lover’s crown.
There still he kneels, the painter-king of realms none dare to tread,
Caressing strokes no eyes but his and weeping shades will tread.

Each dusk, the phantom in the frame awakens, cold and bright,
To sing of trust’s sweet frailty through the long, unyielding night.
Her smile blooms like poison rose, her gaze a frozen storm—
Eternal muse to broken souls who court the serpent’s form.

Thus ends the tale of brush and soul, of light that darkness bred,
Where inspiration’s sweetest kiss becomes the feast for dead.
Beware the woods where shadows paint with hues beyond the veil—
For mortal hearts, once pledged to art, make pyres where truths turn frail.