My Love! I Shall Never Return!

On a December morn, the sun shone bright
I came to the brook beneath the skylight
To feel the sun under the wintery veil,
When my maiden arrived, soft and frail
and hushed in her voice sweet 
"O Love! My heart is yours, complete!"

The sun would set, and yet we would stay
To share our hearts below the cosmic play.
Stars would brighten and fade in an arc
As I laid in her arms, all throughout the dark,
Becoming an aspect of her beauteous grace, 
and a warmth that I'd forever chase.

We'd walk through fields, high and low
in the morn's dew and the dusky glow
Butterflies girdled her in the day,
Her tress dwelled fireflies back on the way,
When she hushed something we'd pursue,
"My Love! I'll always long for you."

But time, like the brook, found its way
and soon came the fateful day,
When war decreed men to fight, 
And move away from love and delight.
Hence, my duty bid me far to roam
Yet I promised her I'd soon return home.

She stood along the brook's shore
Weeping as the winds softly tore, 
I kissed her lips, salt mixed with the sea
and told her softly to remember me.
She wept as though I was a part of her
which haunts me in dreams, far and near.

The grounds I trudge were stained in blood
and over the earth, there was a flood
of tears, cries cloaked in a gloomy veil,
as my mates and friends fell trail by trail.
Yet, through this horror in my mind,
Her visage, her smile, I sought to find.

Amidst those grounds and perennial strife
I somehow clung to my fragile life.
Amidst the severed bodies of so plenty, 
I won over with wounds far too many
With each scar telling of woes I'd faced
laced with hope, my heart had embraced.

But as days rolled on and skies grew grey,
Her letters ceased to come along my way.
The war tore and aged my youthful skin 
And maimed the man I'd been within.
Still, I felt her love, now distant and cold
as my heart refused to grow old. 

The wounds slowly began to claim
Whatever strength was left in shame.
Each breath weaker, every step unsure,
yet I longed for her with a heart so pure.
But all my wishes were met with cold--
In vain, I reached, yet nobody to hold.

I knew my death awaited me near
With every breath confirming my fear,
Too weak to rise and too weak to fight,
I wrote my words in a dimming light,
An epitaph that she might read,
For I could never be hers, nor heed.

"Lies here a man who did yearn
for love, but fate decreed him not to return.
A heart once lively now cold and still
filled with love despite destiny's will.
Remember me, but do not mourn,
My Love! I shall never return! "

She came at last when I was gone,
Upon the graveyard's greenish lawn.
She knelt beside my lonely grave
and offered flowers and tears she'd save.
The epitaph made her learn
the truth that her love wouldn't return.

She cried as her dreams bit the dust
to satiate the thirst of the bygone lust.
She wept helplessly beside this stone
Her tears fell soft like rain, all alone.
Yet I, beyond the grasp of my cursed life,
Couldn't come to end my maiden's strife.