Emilie Autumn

Alas
My love
If I could make you live
And from the page
Step forth and sit beside me
Or better still
Bestride the steed I gave you
Wrapped close within the cloak
I lent to hide thee
Perhaps I’d venture forth to ask thy name
Since while thou liest underneath my pen
That honour given
Which the poorest claim
Unjustly was withheld
But if again
I held thee captive
As I did ere now
Stalling to pass my fingers through the last
Of midnight tendrils
Or peruse thy brow
In fear of sending off what heaven cast
Too early
For my insufficient mind
To grasp the fullest detail
And retain
The presence
That your image left behind
That thou in all thy glory should remain
I fear my oversight
I would not mend
For now upon reflection
I confess
That secretly
I never did intend
With title long
Or surname rich
To bless
But rather
Let in my imagination
Run wild the thoughts of
Who perhaps you were
Before your soul
Demanded your creation
And deigned my mind
And willing heart to stir
For such a noble
And impassioned face
Could well be but
Newborn unto this sphere
But sure among a distant
Beauteous race
Thou hast known more than all who dwelleth here
And could tell much of places thou hast seen
And battles fought
For honours won and lost
And how each service
Done a faerie Queen
Becomes
A brighter jewel than it cost
The ladies of your world
You may impart
Desire to be neither
Over-graced
Nor underrepresented in the art
Of living
Where their lips were meant to taste
A sort of feline stealth
They wear about them
And while a flame of innocence they hold
In forests dark
You fear to be without them
For knights of maler kinds are ne’er so bold
Yes, in thy orb a maid may be a knight
(Thou knew’st a friend would make upon this news)
Without a whisper loud
Or censure slight
For lords are not afeared
Their stock to lose
Where no stock may be taken
Or be kept
No property be granted
Nor no bride
No maiden
May be stolen while she slept
Nor robbed of her freedom
To decide
What suits her best
No county’s law is needed
To cut the weed of violence from the stem
No danger for the law to go unheeded
For acts as these
Do not occur to them
The gentlemen you raise
Are rarer still
For in their eyes, as in the depths of thine
Such soft
And thrilling mysteries fulfill
The darkest corners of their heart’s design
Their arrows
Much like those I gave to thee
Could not but graze the flank of yonder cow
Without making him laugh
‘Tis much to see
Them tickling their prey
I know not
How
They ever do
Encapture what they eat
Save that perhaps
Their bright unfettered brains
Have learned that
What grows underneath their feet
And in the trees above
Better sustains
A life
Intent on living well tomorrow
But how
I ask thee
Most endearing fiend
Do lords and ladies love
Where is no
Sorrow
No strife to overcome
No soul uncleaned
Of crushing ardor
Long worn out its stay
Betrothal to a mortal less divine
Than that who stole thy blushing breath away
No hot
Forbidden kisses for to pine
No heart affixed to age
Where heart is young
No ill intentioned suitors to evade?
“Still madam!
Would'st thou kindly hold thy tongue”
Thou sayest
“Your mistake has rash been made
In living long
In combat with your kind
Thou see’st no other obstacle but these
Thy hands are careworn
Yet to find
The hands that first should hold them
Yet to please the hierarchy
Which you serve unwitting
Thou dost believe that love in fighting grows
That happiness