Bride to Be (part seven)

Bride to Be (part seven)

If he would be there to meet me

I would risk the chase

My father in that fretful time did keep me guarded close

Such of quandary was my trial, to love and doubt

(and that I must, that he was not soft and pious, made me proud)

I thought of what might be feigned, illness and madness

Death…they say it can be done

But Alderic would hear of it, what then?

Perhaps for his Thisbe he would not fall on his sword

Perhaps this face…I looked in every glass

Was common in beauty

He would sigh and think of war

My chamberwoman’s bed each night was placed across my door

“Do you have kin, Hesmunde?”

Her head she bowed, wary her words

“What is the need of asking?”

I had bought a sleeping drug, uncaring I would use it

Yet—

“On pain of death,” my father had warned the poor creature

I knew it

The third night passed, the fourth morning I rose vowing

I would ride to the meeting place, only an arrow outfly me

If so, so be it

A king in his might slays whom he will

And the God of Rome pursue him

And the gods of our mothers be deaf unto him

Let the fruit on the branch then wither betimes

the son, and the grandson

and the son of the grandson

Render them dust for gold

Sow in the battle-soaked blood of their fields, thorns and tares

So, roundly, Daughter, did I curse my own house

Bride to Be

Decoration Day

Bride to Be (part eight)

(2019, Stephanie Foster)