The Wanderer’s Final Candle
A wanderer, footsore and lone, his vigil came to keep.
The dusk had draped its sable cloak o’er silent, hallowed ground,
Where echoes of forgotten prayers in every stone were bound.
His eyes, like smoldered embers, traced the glyphs of ancient lore,
While memories, unbidden, rose like tides upon the shore—
A face once bright as summer’s dawn, now veiled in twilight’s shroud,
A voice that sang through verdant groves, now stilled, yet haunting loud.
The cathedral, vast and hollow, breathed a chill that bit his bones,
As though the very air conspired to whisper through the stones.
A flicker! There—beyond the nave, a spectral glow arose,
A flame that danced with pallid grace, a light that sorrow chose.
It led him through the transept’s gloom, where shadows clasped his sleeve,
To where a figure, wraithlike, mourned in robes of moonlit weave.
Her visage, pale as winter’s first and most reluctant snow,
Unveiled the ghost of her he sought, long lost to depths below.
“You tread,” she sighed, “on hallowed dust, where mortal feet should fear.
Why summon phantoms from their rest? Why dare to venture here?”
His voice, a tremor in the dark, bore years of starved lament:
“To barter breath for borrowed time, to reverse what fate has sent.
They say this place grants one last plea, a trade of soul for soul—
Take mine, and let her walk again, unbound from death’s tight toll.”
The spectre’s laugh, a brittle thing, like frost on fractured glass,
Unfurled the truth in syllables that made the rafters pass:
“No simple trade, O wayward fool, can mend what time has rent.
The price is paid in steps of woe, in trials dearly spent.
Three nights you’ll keep this candle lit ’gainst horrors yet unseen,
And when the final flame expires, so too your mortal sheen.”
He knelt, the waxen taper clasped in hands that shook yet swore,
While winds, as if from netherworlds, began to snarl and roar.
The first night’s trial: shadows crept, with claws of iron chill,
Their whispers sharp as daggers, bent to bend his wavering will.
“What worth,” they hissed, “a love long cold, a grave’s unyielding keep?
Relinquish now, and sleep as she, in endless, dreamless sleep!”
But firm he stood, though bloodied thoughts like storm-tossed waves assailed,
And through the dark, her name became the shield that never failed.
The second night: the candle’s flame grew dim, a guttering sigh,
As shapes of those he’d wronged in life emerged to demand why.
A mother’s ghost, her eyes bereft, a friend he’d failed to aid,
Their accusations, sharp and just, in mournful chorus played.
“Yet here I kneel,” he pled, “to right one wrong no others sway—
To give her back the stolen dawn, though mine be torn away.”
They faded, slow as morning mist, their judgment left unsealed,
While in his heart, the candle’s warmth a fragile hope revealed.
The third night fell with thunder’s growl, the walls themselves alive,
As Death, in robes of raven down, strode forth to now deprive.
“You cling,” it spoke, “to mortal chains, though all must heed my call.
Extinguish now your futile light, and let the darkness fall.”
The wanderer, with breathless resolve, pressed close the dying fire,
And in its glow, beheld her face—his one, his last desire.
“I choose,” he cried, “the final dawn she’ll greet with eyes anew,
Though I become but ash and dusk, a memory to few.”
The flame expired. A silence, vast and hollow, filled the air,
As stone by stone, the cathedral sighed its acceptance of the pair.
Where once he knelt, a statue stood, its features worn yet mild,
One hand outstretched to grasp the light, the other clasping wild
A portrait, small and faded, of a woman’s laughing gaze—
While far beyond, in sunlit fields, she walks through endless days.
Yet oft, when midnight’s hour tolls, a shadow lingers near,
To trace the name on weathered plaque, to shed a voiceless tear.
For love, though sworn to silence, finds in death no tethered chain,
And grieves, eternal, in the dark, where light dares not remain.
“`
