The Weeping Stones of Evermere

Three springs had passed since first her heart was snared,
When art’s fair son, Lorenzo, came to paint
The chapel’s vault—his eyes, two stars ensnared
In midnight’s depth, could make the saints grow faint.
Through scaffold’s maze, their glances oft would meet,
Where brushstrokes hid what lips dared not confess;
A palette’s blush, a sigh half-stilled, discreet—
Thus passion bloomed ‘neath sacred artifice.

“Fair mistress,” whispered Lorenzo one dim eve,
As sunset bled through martyrs’ glassine tears,
“This vaulted heaven mocks what we believe—
These angels know the weight of mortal years.”
Her throat constricted as a trapped dove’s cry:
“Speak not what crumbling walls might yet betray—
Thy pigments fade, as too this flesh must die,
And honor’s chain outlasts the briefest day.”

Yet still he came when harvest moons hung low,
Their trysting hour marked by the screech owl’s call;
Through postern gate left ajar to show
Where love, like tendrils, cracks the sternest wall.
In scriptorium dank with parchment musk,
They traced sonnets in the dust’s gray veil—
His thumb erased a name ‘neath dusk’s cruel brusque,
As star-crossed words turned ashen, wan, and pale.

“Would God these hands could sculpt our fate anew,”
He murmured ‘gainst her braids’ imprisoned fire,
“Carve from these stones a world where vows prove true
Beyond the reach of heraldry’s cold ire.”
Her laughter bit like winter’s first sharp breath:
“Thy chisel breaks ‘gainst custom’s granite law—
My hand is pledged ere sunset brings my death
To lands where thy mere genius warrants awe.”

O cruel renaissance! That birthed the dawn
Of art’s rebirth yet chained the yearning soul;
What vaulted wit, what philosophies drawn
Could mend the heart which duty’s shears made whole?
Through autumn’s grief, they met in stolen snatches—
Beneath the cistern’s arch, where water wept,
In linen closet where her ‘kerchief catches
The cinnamon scent his trembling fingers kept.

Till came the morn when trumpets split the fog,
Announcing him to whom her troth was bound—
Lord Evermere, whose banners bore the hog,
Whose blunt discourse could scarce parse lyric sound.
“See, love,” she sneered, her voice a dagger’s song,
“Here strides my future swathed in ermine trite—
Go paint thy Magdalens, for here belong
The broken hues of our extinguished light.”

That final eve, as frost gnawed at the rose,
They met where crumbling saints watched, blind and chipped.
“Take this,” he gasped, a miniature enclosed
In crystal case where twin-faced Janus gripped—
“My soul’s true likeness, wrought in secret nights,
Concealed ‘neath layers of commissioned lies—
Keep it close when pomp’s false candle lights
The hollow court where true affection dies.”

She clutched the locket ‘gainst her corset’s bone,
As dawn’s first blade sliced through the chapel’s gloom;
Their parting kiss, a sacrament unknown
To any god save those who haunt love’s tomb.
Then came the feast—the bride in cloth-of-gold,
Her smile a death-mask forged by courtly hands,
While through the revel’s roar, forever cold,
A locket’s weight against her breast demands…

Years crawled like beetles ‘cross a tomb’s carved date.
Lord Evermere now moldered ‘neath the kirk,
His line extinguished by war’s bloody bait—
While she, the chatelaine, became the work
Of grief’s slow artistry. Each night she’d stand
Before the locket’s truth, that face divine
Now blurred by tears no linen could withstand,
The crystal clouded like love’s strangled sign.

One December’s eve, when snow clothed the land
In burial white, there came a traveler worn—
A painter, stooped, with frost for beard, whose hand
Trembled as he begged respite from the storm.
Through web-veiled halls, their eyes met—time collapsed.
“You live…” she breathed. “They said you fell in Rome—”
“And so I did,” he coughed, “Yet death elapsed
When fever’s kiss reminded me of home.”

Three days he lingered, sketching by weak firelight
The castle’s corpse, her face now lined with rue.
No word of passion passed—yet in the night,
The locket burned between them, glowing true.
At dawn’s fourth day, he gripped her withered wrist:
“Come fly with me to where warm citrons grow—
What chains bind thee, now death hath kept his tryst?
Let these dead stones absolve our wasted vow!”

She gazed where ice enshrined the chapel’s arch,
“Too late, sweet thief. The girl you knew remains
Entombed in duty’s crypt. Now winter’s march
Has frozen all but these persistent stains—”
Her palm upturned to catch the ashen flakes,
“Go paint your paradise, and sometimes think
When mixing blues for some fair southern lakes,
Of northern snows…and this, our final brink.”

He left at noon. She watched from the north tower
As his lone form grew small on the white waste,
Then turned to meet the slow, devouring hour—
The locket clasped against her racing haste.
That night, the servants found the crystal case
Empty, its chain draped ‘round a bedpost bare.
Through snowdrifts deep, they searched each haunted space,
Till spring revealed what winter chose to spare—

High in the chapel vault, where scaffold’s maze
Once hosted brushes dipped in stolen bliss,
A new saint graced the fresco’s faded glaze:
A woman’s form, her arms outstretched to kiss
A shadow’s shade. The artist’s name, long lost,
But in her eyes—two brushstrokes blue and deep—
There dwelled a truth no piety could exhaust:
The eternal No that answers Love’s rash leap.

Now ivy chokes the casement where she waits,
Her locket filled with dust from Lorenzo’s tomb.
The wind through broken glass still relates
Their ballad to the swallows in the gloom.
And sometimes, when the moon imitates
The crystal case that trapped their fleeting bloom,
Two shadows meet where crumbling stone dictates
The dance that living flesh could ne’er consummate.