The Wanderer’s Forsaken Dawn

There wandered one whose soul bore wander’s creed,
A traveler gaunt, with eyes that silently plead
For respite from the road’s unending curse—
Yet found, instead, a thorn-bound, fated seed.

He crossed the bridge where ivy choked the arch,
Its cobbles groaning whispers stern and harsh,
As if the earth itself rebuked his tread,
And warned of chains unseen, too grim to parch.

A maiden there, by yew trees’ spectral grace,
Wove garlands pale as moonshine on her face,
Her fingers trembling with each bloom she twined—
A portrait of a heart besieged by space.

Their glances met as dusk embraced the spire,
Two flames that leapt across a sea of mire;
No word was breathed, yet centuries of ache
Collapsed betwixt them, kindling hidden fire.

She, daughter of the soil, by custom chained,
To tend the hearth where duty’s pyre reigned,
He, nomad sworn to winds that scorned all roots—
A duality no fragile hope could mend.

By hidden brooks where nightingales confessed,
They stole brief hours, half-blessed and half-oppressed,
Her laughter silver in the owl’s domain,
His vows like leaves in tempests dispossessed.

“O stay,” she pled, “and let the wide world fade—
Build altars in the glades where we have prayed.”
“Alas,” he sighed, “my spirit is the storm
That dies when caged, though love’s sweet price be paid.”

One eve, beneath the oak that elders feared,
They forged a pact that Destiny upreared:
At dawn’s first blush, he’d sever wander’s thrall,
And she, the village yoke, forever sheared.

But Fate, that weaver of ironic schemes,
Set watchful hearts to haunt their tender dreams—
Her kinsmen stalked the tryst, with torches high,
And branded him a thief of virtue’s gleams.

Through forests thick with centuries’ disdain,
They drove him forth with dirge and dagger’s rain,
Her screams ensnared within the boughs’ cruel grasp,
His name a wound that echoed through the plain.

The maiden, bound to thresholds carved in stone,
Now tends her grief where wilder roses groan,
Her fingers tracing maps on frosted panes—
A world beyond, forever left unknown.

He roams the earth, a wraith in rags of gray,
Each step a dirge for dawns he threw away,
While in his pack, a wilted garland rests—
Love’s ossified, embalmed in disarray.

And in the hamlet, clocks refuse to turn,
As if the stars themselves decree to mourn;
The bridge’s arch, by ivy strangled tight,
Now bears no footfall, save the frost’s return.

Thus Freedom’s dual curse no heart escapes—
The captive yearns for vast, untamed landscapes,
The rover pines for borders that enclave…
While twilight binds them both in starless shapes.