The Knight’s Last Vigil Upon the Tempest’s Maw
A knight of shadowed valor climbed the cliffs both steep and deep,
His armor scarred by battles, yet his heart more wounded still,
For love, that cruel enchantress, bent his soul to fate’s dark will.
The sea, a ravening titan, roared with foamy jaws agape,
Its waves like claws of vengeance scaling rocks in monstrous shape,
And there, amidst the tumult, stood a tower pale and lone,
Where captive lay his lady, in a cell of splintered bone.
“O Elara!” cried Sir Alaric, voice drowned by tempest’s song,
“Though waves may gnaw the firmament, I’ll right this ancient wrong!”
No answer came but thunder, as the winds tore at his cloak,
Yet steadfast burned his purpose through the brine that choked his throat.
Three moons had waxed and withered since her voice had fled the air,
Since sorcery’s bleak tendrils bound her breath to seaweed’s lair.
A curse, the village whispered, cast by envious ocean sprites,
Had stilled her mortal laughter, dimmed her dawn-bright eyes to night.
“By blade or blood or breaking,” swore the knight with trembling hand,
“I’ll rend this watery prison, though the depths demand my land.”
His sword, once lit by glory, now seemed dull as leaden grief,
But love, that stubborn ember, lent his sinews steel belief.
He climbed where gulls dared falter, where the lighthouse shed no grace,
Each step a dirge of duty, each gasp a name—her face.
The tower’s ancient stones, they wept with lichen’s slimy tears,
As through the barred and rusted grate, her form at last appears.
Pale as moonlit marble, yet with spirit’s fire undrowned,
Her fingers brushed the freezing air where salt and hope were ground.
“Begone!” she pled, “Dear heart, too long you’ve battled vainly here—
This curse no mortal conquers. Live, and hold my memory dear.”
“Not while these hands yet grasp the hilt,” he vowed with quaking breath,
“Not while this tide-beat heart endures this living echo of death.”
Beneath them, caverns bellowed; overhead, the storm’s black shroud
Twined round the moon’s pale throat until no star dared cry aloud.
Then came a lull—the ocean drew its breath in hushed deceit—
And in that hollow moment, whispers slithered ‘neath his feet:
“A trade,” the waters murmured, “Lay thy valor on our stone,
Thy pulse for hers, thy warmth for ice—thy essence for her own.”
No pause, no plea, no trembling—his eyes met hers, and lo,
A smile, like fragile sunlight through storm’s ruin, soft and slow:
“If life be but a borrowed flame, let mine her beacon feed—
Strike, tides! I yield my numbered days. Now seal the pact decreed!”
The waves, like hungered judges, rose in columns grim and tall,
Their verdict writ in whirlpools as they claimed him for their thrall.
One kiss, through iron’s lattice—salt, and sweetness, and despair—
Then darkness, cold and absolute, drank every whispered prayer.
Dawn broke, a timid stranger, on a shore both still and stark,
Where seabirds mourned in circles above tides now calm and dark.
No tower marred the headland; no curse stained the salted air—
Just kelp-strewn sands, and in their grasp, a lock of golden hair.
Far off, a voice, now unfettered, wove through mists of fading pain,
A song of loss and longing, of love’s price, and the gain
That ethereal as sea-foam, lingers when the brave depart—
A knight’s name, borne on westward winds, to haunt the listener’s heart.
Thus ends this mournful ballad—how a soul too fiercely true
Could barter light for shadow, could bid the eternal adieu.
Let those who walk by headlands, when the gale sings low and wild,
Hear swords clash in the thunder… and weep for love’s exiled child.
“`
