The Pale Garland

A misty eve of mid-winter,

When Beltane had not but rose,

And light rain chilled and calmly fell,

A frost did linger ever close

Amidst the cracks in the oak walls.

Adorned the lady Meluisine,

A peasant who was taken wife -

To the King of summer land.

So entranced became this King of dreams

Thus for to taken aback was he

With all her raven locks bejeweled

in evermore with rare dismay,

Her keen green eyes,

Her soft light foot.

He loved her true as she loved him;

So blissful was this maid of splendor

When she learned she was with child.

He covered her with kisses tender.

So dawned the day she would give birth,

To what, she’d not anticipated.

The King pushed back her hair along

And placed upon her high set brow,

A garland of pale roses

And then a handsome onyx brooch

Upon her breast that grateful night.

But what had captured her own fate?

Of that she gave her very breath?

To rise the demons of Kings eyes

To kill the love that caused joy’s death

Oh, bitter outrage! Oh Woe begone!

Why must the stars fall crookedly?

First that the King must bury ashes

Of his dear fair Meluisine

And Then of his accursed offspring

In the dark wood of the evils

Of the sirens and the demon

Of the beasts and of the fiends

Of the larks and of the devils

Of the sinned and of the damned

Of the wicked and cruel levels

So shaken was this pitied King

To learn his wife’s sure demise

And what she gave would not relent

Of this his solemn grief ridden morn’

For underneath the walls of stone

Beautiful twin girls were born

No greater omen of such exists

To have twins amidst such royalty

Of which his sin of magnitude

The stubborn King would not repent

Out to the mouth were they laid

Those beautiful fair curses bred

Before the outstretched forest

And amid their open palms

Was laid the pale rose garland

of their mother, fair Meluisine

Crying! Wailing! Screaming! Weeping!

were they left without a care

For nothing lest the hands of death

Deliver them from there

But a different fate was to unwind

As it always must

For a small creature of the wood

Would fall upon their path

And blushing with such sympathy

Upon his outstretched arm

One girl was gathered in his arms

the garland close upon his breast

And a small clover colored veil

Awaiting what their god may give

whilst the other left to cruelly wail

For fair was she, with amber hair

Large changing eyes and rosy cheeks.

Pale she was, from bitter cold

And So the creature wound a cloak

Of leaves and bark and such else too

And from his arms she lulled to asleep

Amidst the trees of fresh pink dew

But doth, Alas, that was not all

For another was but weary too

of the innocent dark filled plight

A knight of gold and silver else

Did see this child of the King

With rosy lips and high blue eyes

into his arms she laid to wait

No fairer had another seen

Until all could thence see her fate.

Raiyenne grew a maiden of the wood,

With amber hair and eyes of mystery

Ever changing as the forest

And of the garland she would bear

Cache of the fabled Meluisine

Upon her high lit brow it laid

For lost was she to her own past

As sad she grew, and weary too

And though her thoughts rose much too vast

Priwyn grew to life at court

A lady of pride, and privilege too

Unmindful of her own sister

Living in the thrall of kismet

For in the towers she would stay

Her soft red lips would never say

“Of something rich

and something strange

Ever do I dream

of  worlds unknown

that I must yet attain

and of the charmed and coiled lair

In all my dreams they do declare”