Sestina for One Loved and Lost
These lines I bring to thee as broken jewels
Which once were fair and fitting for the eye
Of one who held my very heart within
His own, kept safe and sound, though storm-tossed, stirred
Brim-full to bursting with uncounted dreams
Of ancient, unguessed, far-off, hidden things.
These limping numbers, botched and tarnished things,
I weave, a tapestry of tears like jewels
Wherein will hide the hauntings of my dreams
Beneath a pattern pleasing to the eye
Which seeketh only beauty, never stirred
By terror or delight held deep within.
Too late I sing, though love still lies within
These verses, though they seem but tiny things
When set against what bound us, spirit-stirred
And keen, heart-piercing love, agleam with jewels
By time untarnished, set before the eye
Of mirrored memory, the dust of dreams.
In vain I forge these phrases into dreams
Like dry stone walls against what waits within
The centre of my soul, that very eye
Now dimmed by doubt, but once all bright with things
Of boundless beauty, brought like ancient jewels
From unfound lands no foot but thine e'er stirred.
Why now, when time has parted thee and me, are stirred
These stanzas forth from out my deepest dreams,
When memories remain like scattered jewels
To run like sand through fingers, though within
The hand held tightly clasped, beloved things
Soon vanished in the twinkling of an eye?
And yet, though thou art no more to mortal eye,
Thy treasured voice, though all but lost to me, has stirred
My sleeping love to fleeting life, and things
Once sundered far beyond my deepest dreams
Draw near, though hidden by my haunted heart within
The casket of my soul like perfect jewels.
The eye of love doth find the rarest jewels
When strangely stirred by sympathy within,
For then of wondrous things untold it dreams!
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