The Starling’s Farewell on Blackfriars Bridge
Beneath the weeping vault of heaven’s leaden shroud,
Where Thames, a serpent old, in sable currents bowed,
There stood a bridge of stone, its arches cold and high,
A stage for sorrow’s play ‘neath starless, splintered sky.
The rain, a thousand needles stitching air to stream,
Embroidered grief upon the fabric of a dream—
And there she waited, carved from twilight’s ashen breath,
A statue draped in shadows, dancing with her death.
Her eyes, twin pools where midnight’s bitter herbs had steeped,
Held constellations drowned—the promises love reaped;
Her hair, a tempest captured in a net of jet,
Whispered of storms that linger when all suns have set.
A locket, cold as sin, clenched in her trembling palm,
Its miniature a face once warmer than a psalm—
Now tarnished silver kissed the ghost of manly grace,
While rain dissolved the contours of that vanished face.
“O Memory,” she murmured to the river’s sigh,
“Thou art the cruelest thief beneath this rotting sky—
Thou stealest not the joy, but leav’st its hollow shell,
A husk to mock the famine where abundance fell.”
The waters hissed their answer, serpentine and low,
As lanterns on the bridgehead guttered in their woe.
One star—no, not a star—some jest of fractured light
Pierced through the clouds like hope that lingers past its night.
Then footsteps, slow as dirges, echoed on the stone—
A shadow, long and lean, approached her, all alone.
His cloak, the hue of heartblood dried upon a sleeve,
His hat pulled low to shield the face she dare not grieve.
“Eleanor,” he whispered, voice like rusted wire,
And in that word congealed a universe of fire.
She turned—the locket biting deep into her flesh—
Beheld the eyes that once had made her spirit fresh.
“Thou darest come,” she uttered, frost in every syllable,
“To tread upon the grave where trust and truth did crumble?
What bringst thou now, save poison in a gilded bowl,
Or daggers wrapped in sonnets meant to flay my soul?”
He stood, a trembling aspen in the tempest’s roar,
His hand half-stretched as if to mend some shattered door.
“Eight springs have died since last I kissed thy fevered brow,
Yet still thy scorn cuts keener than the hangman’s vow.”
“Scorn?” laughed the rain, her mirth a knell in liquid air,
“Thou speakst as if betrayal were a trifling affair!
When thou didst pledge thy heart beneath yon rowan tree,
Swore oak would break before thy faith would part from me—
Yet ere the leaves had fallen from our bridal crown,
Thy letters grew as sparse as petals drifting down.
Then silence, vast as deserts where no prayers reside,
While whispers reached me of a wealthier bride…”
His fingers brushed the locket—she recoiled as burned—
“By all that’s holy, Eleanor, how fortunes turned!
That lie was forged by envy’s black and cankered tongue—
No mortal chain could bind me once from thee I’d sprung.
In Malta’s fever-isles I fought Death’s putrid breath,
While merchants spun their fables of my crafted death.
Ten moons I raved thy name into the surgeon’s ears,
Then crawled through hell’s own gutters to outrace thy tears…”
A lightning-slice of silence. River held its flow.
Her throat, a cage of tremors, asked, “If this be so,
Why found I naught but ashes where our hearth once blazed?
Why came no word, no token, through those years half-crazed?”
From cloak’s dark folds he drew a packet, waxen-sealed,
The parchment warped by tides of time but still revealed—
A hundred letters, penned in rust-brown ink of pain,
Each “Dearest” blurred by salt of Mediterranean rain.
“The ship that bore these missives sank ‘neath traitor waves,
While I, chained to a sickbed, count my life as slaves
Count endless days—each moment’s toll, a fresh despair,
Knowing thy heart must deem me false as April’s air.”
Her fingers traced the words that never found their home,
The vows outsoared by gales, the prayers too late to roam.
The locket sprang—two faces, youth’s bright banner furled,
Now gazed upon their older ghosts within the world.
“O Theodore,” she wept, “what specters we’ve become—
Two portraits kept in sepia, where life was dumb.
Thy truth arrives as winter claims the barren bough,
And I… I am betrothed to sorrow’s banquet now.”
He gripped the bridge’s railing till his knuckles shone
Like marble saints that guard a long-deserted throne.
“Then break that bond,” he pleaded, “flee with me this night!
My ship lies anchored where the Thames consorts with light.”
Her laughter scalded heavier than the weeping sky,
“A child’s sweet fancy, Theodore—and here’s why:
The heart thou seekst to reclaim is not thine to take,
But lies entombed with him who died for thy mistake.
Three winters past, a wretch who bore thy features dear
Approached me with false trophies of thy fictive bier—
When I denied his suit, his wrath fell swift and crude,
My brother’s blood soon pooled where love’s red roses stood.”
The star—that piteous star—now guttered like a sigh,
As horror etched its verdict in the tempest’s eye.
“Then… young Charles…” he stammered, “golden child of seventeen…”
“Now feeds the worms,” she finished, “where willows evergreen
Stand sentinel above the grave no sun can warm—
His sin? Defending honor from a viper’s swarm.
The law absolved the killer, for his purse was fat,
But I keep score where blindfolded Themis sat.”
Beneath the bridge, the Thames moaned low in understanding,
Its waters thick with tragedies beyond demanding.
He reached to touch her cheek—she froze as if bespelled,
Two statues forged by anguish in this liquid hell.
“Then let me be thy brother’s proxy in this strife—
My blade shall carve repentance from his murderer’s life!”
She turned her face toward the star’s expiring glow,
“Thou canst not kill what’s worse than dead, as thou shouldst know.”
The rain now fell in sheets, a billion liquid knives
Stabbing the world’s raw flesh, excising mortal lives.
From her soaked bodice gleamed a locket newly wrought—
Not silver, but plain iron, with a venomous thought.
“This holds,” she breathed, “not faces kind, but bitter sands—
The ashes of his letters, saved from foreign lands.
Each dawn I’ve fed on poison, sipped from memory’s vault,
Till sorrow’s vintage courses where love’s rivers halt.”
He grasped the iron pendant, heedless of its sting,
“Then let me share thy cup, and to destruction cling!
If thou wilt walk from light, I’ll be thy shadow’s shade,
If thou dost scorn the sunrise, let our night be made.”
For one eternal moment, heaven held its gust—
Her lips neared his, as moth to flame, in desperate trust—
Then iron clattered sharply on the bridge’s spine,
As both their hands released love’s ashes to the brine.
“Farewell,” she whispered, “phantom of my heart’s first bloom,
The past is but a sealed and solitary tomb.
Thy star has led thee here too late to breach the veil—
I wed the quiet darkness; thou, the specter’s trail.”
She stepped toward the edge where no rail interposed,
Her figure etched in rain that wearied as it dozed.
“Yet stay!” he roared, a sound to crack the firmament,
“Or let this final kiss be our sacrament!”
Too late—her foot met air where solid stone should dwell,
Too late—his grasp closed round the fabric of her fell.
The river opened wide its maw of roiling night,
And claimed the broken angel who refused the light.
He lunged—the railing caught his breast with iron teeth—
Below, the waves convulsed in their voracious wreath.
One hand clutched empty velvet, blacker than despair,
The other—ah! The locket, still swung mocking there.
Dawn came at last, a timid suitor clad in gray,
To find the bridge deserted, save where shadows play.
No trace remained of passion’s catastrophic toll—
Just iron links unbroken, and a tarnished scroll:
“Let no star guide true lovers through the tempest’s wrath,
For light but lures to precipices grim and swathed.
Better to walk in darkness, hand in faithful hand,
Than chase false beacons o’er love’s corpse-strewn strand.”
Thus ends the tale that Thames still whispers when mist falls,
Of hearts that broke their compass on betrayal’s walls.
The star? Some claim it shines when autumn rains descend—
A lie, like all sweet promises that feign to mend.
So heed this chronicle of shadows, writ in rain:
In trusting heaven’s candles, mortals court their pain.
For love, once drowned in Lethe’s unforgiving surge,
Becomes the weeping specter—ashes, dirge, and scourge.
Where Thames, a serpent old, in sable currents bowed,
There stood a bridge of stone, its arches cold and high,
A stage for sorrow’s play ‘neath starless, splintered sky.
The rain, a thousand needles stitching air to stream,
Embroidered grief upon the fabric of a dream—
And there she waited, carved from twilight’s ashen breath,
A statue draped in shadows, dancing with her death.
Her eyes, twin pools where midnight’s bitter herbs had steeped,
Held constellations drowned—the promises love reaped;
Her hair, a tempest captured in a net of jet,
Whispered of storms that linger when all suns have set.
A locket, cold as sin, clenched in her trembling palm,
Its miniature a face once warmer than a psalm—
Now tarnished silver kissed the ghost of manly grace,
While rain dissolved the contours of that vanished face.
“O Memory,” she murmured to the river’s sigh,
“Thou art the cruelest thief beneath this rotting sky—
Thou stealest not the joy, but leav’st its hollow shell,
A husk to mock the famine where abundance fell.”
The waters hissed their answer, serpentine and low,
As lanterns on the bridgehead guttered in their woe.
One star—no, not a star—some jest of fractured light
Pierced through the clouds like hope that lingers past its night.
Then footsteps, slow as dirges, echoed on the stone—
A shadow, long and lean, approached her, all alone.
His cloak, the hue of heartblood dried upon a sleeve,
His hat pulled low to shield the face she dare not grieve.
“Eleanor,” he whispered, voice like rusted wire,
And in that word congealed a universe of fire.
She turned—the locket biting deep into her flesh—
Beheld the eyes that once had made her spirit fresh.
“Thou darest come,” she uttered, frost in every syllable,
“To tread upon the grave where trust and truth did crumble?
What bringst thou now, save poison in a gilded bowl,
Or daggers wrapped in sonnets meant to flay my soul?”
He stood, a trembling aspen in the tempest’s roar,
His hand half-stretched as if to mend some shattered door.
“Eight springs have died since last I kissed thy fevered brow,
Yet still thy scorn cuts keener than the hangman’s vow.”
“Scorn?” laughed the rain, her mirth a knell in liquid air,
“Thou speakst as if betrayal were a trifling affair!
When thou didst pledge thy heart beneath yon rowan tree,
Swore oak would break before thy faith would part from me—
Yet ere the leaves had fallen from our bridal crown,
Thy letters grew as sparse as petals drifting down.
Then silence, vast as deserts where no prayers reside,
While whispers reached me of a wealthier bride…”
His fingers brushed the locket—she recoiled as burned—
“By all that’s holy, Eleanor, how fortunes turned!
That lie was forged by envy’s black and cankered tongue—
No mortal chain could bind me once from thee I’d sprung.
In Malta’s fever-isles I fought Death’s putrid breath,
While merchants spun their fables of my crafted death.
Ten moons I raved thy name into the surgeon’s ears,
Then crawled through hell’s own gutters to outrace thy tears…”
A lightning-slice of silence. River held its flow.
Her throat, a cage of tremors, asked, “If this be so,
Why found I naught but ashes where our hearth once blazed?
Why came no word, no token, through those years half-crazed?”
From cloak’s dark folds he drew a packet, waxen-sealed,
The parchment warped by tides of time but still revealed—
A hundred letters, penned in rust-brown ink of pain,
Each “Dearest” blurred by salt of Mediterranean rain.
“The ship that bore these missives sank ‘neath traitor waves,
While I, chained to a sickbed, count my life as slaves
Count endless days—each moment’s toll, a fresh despair,
Knowing thy heart must deem me false as April’s air.”
Her fingers traced the words that never found their home,
The vows outsoared by gales, the prayers too late to roam.
The locket sprang—two faces, youth’s bright banner furled,
Now gazed upon their older ghosts within the world.
“O Theodore,” she wept, “what specters we’ve become—
Two portraits kept in sepia, where life was dumb.
Thy truth arrives as winter claims the barren bough,
And I… I am betrothed to sorrow’s banquet now.”
He gripped the bridge’s railing till his knuckles shone
Like marble saints that guard a long-deserted throne.
“Then break that bond,” he pleaded, “flee with me this night!
My ship lies anchored where the Thames consorts with light.”
Her laughter scalded heavier than the weeping sky,
“A child’s sweet fancy, Theodore—and here’s why:
The heart thou seekst to reclaim is not thine to take,
But lies entombed with him who died for thy mistake.
Three winters past, a wretch who bore thy features dear
Approached me with false trophies of thy fictive bier—
When I denied his suit, his wrath fell swift and crude,
My brother’s blood soon pooled where love’s red roses stood.”
The star—that piteous star—now guttered like a sigh,
As horror etched its verdict in the tempest’s eye.
“Then… young Charles…” he stammered, “golden child of seventeen…”
“Now feeds the worms,” she finished, “where willows evergreen
Stand sentinel above the grave no sun can warm—
His sin? Defending honor from a viper’s swarm.
The law absolved the killer, for his purse was fat,
But I keep score where blindfolded Themis sat.”
Beneath the bridge, the Thames moaned low in understanding,
Its waters thick with tragedies beyond demanding.
He reached to touch her cheek—she froze as if bespelled,
Two statues forged by anguish in this liquid hell.
“Then let me be thy brother’s proxy in this strife—
My blade shall carve repentance from his murderer’s life!”
She turned her face toward the star’s expiring glow,
“Thou canst not kill what’s worse than dead, as thou shouldst know.”
The rain now fell in sheets, a billion liquid knives
Stabbing the world’s raw flesh, excising mortal lives.
From her soaked bodice gleamed a locket newly wrought—
Not silver, but plain iron, with a venomous thought.
“This holds,” she breathed, “not faces kind, but bitter sands—
The ashes of his letters, saved from foreign lands.
Each dawn I’ve fed on poison, sipped from memory’s vault,
Till sorrow’s vintage courses where love’s rivers halt.”
He grasped the iron pendant, heedless of its sting,
“Then let me share thy cup, and to destruction cling!
If thou wilt walk from light, I’ll be thy shadow’s shade,
If thou dost scorn the sunrise, let our night be made.”
For one eternal moment, heaven held its gust—
Her lips neared his, as moth to flame, in desperate trust—
Then iron clattered sharply on the bridge’s spine,
As both their hands released love’s ashes to the brine.
“Farewell,” she whispered, “phantom of my heart’s first bloom,
The past is but a sealed and solitary tomb.
Thy star has led thee here too late to breach the veil—
I wed the quiet darkness; thou, the specter’s trail.”
She stepped toward the edge where no rail interposed,
Her figure etched in rain that wearied as it dozed.
“Yet stay!” he roared, a sound to crack the firmament,
“Or let this final kiss be our sacrament!”
Too late—her foot met air where solid stone should dwell,
Too late—his grasp closed round the fabric of her fell.
The river opened wide its maw of roiling night,
And claimed the broken angel who refused the light.
He lunged—the railing caught his breast with iron teeth—
Below, the waves convulsed in their voracious wreath.
One hand clutched empty velvet, blacker than despair,
The other—ah! The locket, still swung mocking there.
Dawn came at last, a timid suitor clad in gray,
To find the bridge deserted, save where shadows play.
No trace remained of passion’s catastrophic toll—
Just iron links unbroken, and a tarnished scroll:
“Let no star guide true lovers through the tempest’s wrath,
For light but lures to precipices grim and swathed.
Better to walk in darkness, hand in faithful hand,
Than chase false beacons o’er love’s corpse-strewn strand.”
Thus ends the tale that Thames still whispers when mist falls,
Of hearts that broke their compass on betrayal’s walls.
The star? Some claim it shines when autumn rains descend—
A lie, like all sweet promises that feign to mend.
So heed this chronicle of shadows, writ in rain:
In trusting heaven’s candles, mortals court their pain.
For love, once drowned in Lethe’s unforgiving surge,
Becomes the weeping specter—ashes, dirge, and scourge.
“`
