An old friend of mine named Margaret gave me this poem years ago, and I find it to be appropriate with Spring upon us. I don’t know if it’s just me, but I read deeper spiritual meaning into this piece, and a tale of the ongoing warfare between darkness and light. And the King reminds me of Someone too.
Margaret may not have intentionally depicted this struggle, but I’m curious if you can see it too…
~♥~
The lady of the forest rode
Beyond her green land strand.
She sought to find the king’s highway
And come upon his land.
She wished to reach the castle keep,
And speak unto the king
Who held within his castle walls
A key, a song, a ring.
She rode upon a palfrey bold
Who trappings were of chains of gold.
And in her arms she gently bore
A book of tales of old.
A sorrow lay upon her brow
That once had been so clear
And pain was grieving her swift eyes,
Leaving them cold and sere;
For the man with the twisted stick
Who hobbled through the land
Had left her trees ungreened and dead,
Had chilled them with his hand.
His beard was long and purely white,
And round his brown he wore
A frozen band of clear crystal
That glittered edge to core.
He left behind him cold white tracks
That filled with cold white snow,
And he cast aside with careless aim
Red berries there to grow.
Upon his shoulder a raven sat
As black as starless sky,
And croaked into his ancient ear
All tales of far and nigh.
The lady of the forest rode
Up to the good king’s keep,
And called and cried to be let in
To tell why she did weep.
He asked her then what was her haste
To which she did reply,
The twisted man who held a stick
Made everything to die:
He came in greyness and in white,
Was ravager of gardens,
And gentle though she always was,
She could not give him pardon.
Not knowing name for such a one,
In herself she called him grief,
For he destroyed all that he saw,
And she now sought relief.
The wise king was a gentle man,
And knew her heart’s hard plight.
He knew her love of living things,
How she guarded with her might
The heather nests of newborn fawns,
The dim dawn’s first grey light,
The fragile wings of silver moths,
The fragrance of the night.
Yet there was nothing he could to
To drive the man away,
For only Time has power enough
To make him come or stay.
And Time who waits upon the hill
Has never heeded mortal call
But sifts the sands by his own whim,
Controlling redemption, rise and fall.
The lady of the forest felt
Some comfort from the king,
For the named Old Man Winter,
He promised her that Spring
Would follow at his heels,
And dance the gardens from the ground,
For Winter had power but for awhile
To whiten sight and sound.
But Spring, renewer, giften green
Upon the weary Earth,
Would bring an end to sorrow’s rule,
To coldness, death, and dearth.
Winter, the man so bent with age,
Whose glance freezes and touch kills,
Will know the end of his long rule,
And will return to the hollow hills.
He will leave the forest and the rills,
And hobble back to the hollow hills.
By Margaret
~♥~
Drifting into the Divine ~♥~ 