The Maiden's Tears

He promised me, he promised, that he would come back.
He promised me by all the names of the stars.
He promised me by the witches' god black,
That between us there would be no bar.

He told me stories of the things he had seen,
He told me tales of the places he had been.
He spoke to me in soft voice of the meadows green
In the morning, where had walked no other men.

He promised me, he promised me, that he would someday
Take me to those places where everything is strange,
Where the end of light does not mean the end of day,
And where the things I have dreamed of range.

But his promises are all broken, all made for naught.
I do not care what force called him away.
He should see me now, see what his words wrought,
And give me a chance to tell him to stay.

There are some who say that he did not belong here,
That they always thought that one day a call
Would come from some place bright, fair, and clear,
And he would never remember this world at all.

I do not believe that he heard a call fair and clear,
For all he left in the night, riding in haste.
I do not believe he would simply disappear,
Without giving me some word, gazing into my face,

Save if some secret shame brought him at last
From the summer of light that he built with me.
I believe that it broke his bastion fast
And made him vanish. Riding west to the sea?

I do not believe, I will not believe, that the song
That I have always heard on the edge of my dreams
Spoke to him in a voice so deep and strong
That he would make my tears flow like the streams.

Where has he gone? West, west, and west, over the sea,
As the old ones murmur that the called always do?
Or has he turned to the forests which, like one tree,
Rise east in the morning, a-shining with dew?

Something in my heart says that he has not, that never
Will I look into his face again, nor hear his voice.
Something has summoned him to the heart of forever.
I would spurn him if he came. He made his choice.