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, 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 was 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 dared to yearn

for love, but fate decreed him not to return.

A once lively heart is 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 an end my maiden's strife.