And Still, I’ll Always Love You

There was a girl, with hair like fire,
Like sunlight had kissed her head.

There was a boy with eyes like the sea,
And laughter that flowed like a rippling stream.

One day the girl came down at dawn,
To dip her feet into the river.
A hint of a smile, the barest sliver.

There lived the boy on water’s edge,
Who walked along the shore,
And who saw a girl he’d seen before.

There was joy, and there was laughter.
Stories and memories, one thousand tales,
Held together through fire and flood, through wind and hail.

He loved her passion and her fire.
She did not rest, nor ever give in—
Endlessly moving, eternally driven.

She loved the softness of his smile,
His gentle hands, made to mend and build,
His touch brought light, his heart fulfilled.

The boy was destined for the wild places—
For meadows where the flowers grow,
For furthest river and brightest snow

But she was destined for things greater:
For fire-bright halls and shattered thrones,
Even stars shall sing, her name be known.

One day, said the boy to the girl, tears flowing down his cheek:

“You are going down a path I can not follow
To lands I do not know, doing things I cannot name
To grow and to live and to never be the same.”

Said the girl to the boy, tears burning in her eyes:

“Can you not join me, stay ever by my side 
Else let me run and dance with you
Never let us part till our days are through.”

The boy looked sadly at the girl,
And said the things which they both knew:

“We’d be chained unto the other.
I would stifle; you would smother.
With different hearts and different souls
We could learn to be happy; we could not be whole.”

The boy and girl did both depart,
With promises, and tears, and memories held,
The movements of the heart, now stilled and quelled,
Flickering like candle flame, like misty mornings after rain.

And there was no parting glance—
It would have shattered both their hearts.

There was a woman, noble and proud,
She stood like a colossus above the rest.
Bearing her torch, beating heart within her chest.

The people cheered her,
Yet pressed upon her mind,
Was the image a boy with eyes like the sea:
The boy that she had left behind.

There was a man who lived among the fields,
In a cottage he had built, in the place that he loved,
He knew only peace, lived free as the dove.

He would smile as the world sang around him.
And yet carved into his heart
Was memory of her,
And sadness that they were apart.

And a day did come, once decades passed,
When dawn did bare a ship upon a river,
As empire reached out its hands,
To seize and hold the unclaimed lands.

A woman, a queen, she stood upon the ship.
She felt glad, yet tired, looking ever on,
Gazing off towards breaking light of dawn.

A man did hear of a visiting queen,
Who would soon arrive upon her ship.
When she arrive he stopped and bowed,
and then his cap he tipped.

There was a twinkling in his eyes,
Like starlight captured in tidal pools.
He knew.

The woman stopped and could not speak,
For just a moment.
Then she ordered that the sails be dropped,
That anchor fall upon the rock.

And there they embraced,
Upon the river bank,
Like never had they left it.

The spent a moment, 
or else three eternities,
Wrapped within each other's arms.

“I can’t stay,” She said.
And he said “I know.”

“But still I’ll always love you.”