Sweet eminence;
Your weeping in quiet hours,
Mute and solitary,
Has suspended you
To the indifferent mercy
Of fresh winter;
Thorns, dulled and smooth,
Lend no armor or salvation;
No blossom to whisper tribulations
Toward chaste suitors.
So unkind
As to entomb you
In your own crystalline tears.
Captive and preserved,
A hand-blown ornament,
With but a history of beauty
To entice.

From the East rises
Your tardy champion,
Whose eyes behold
Your *******;
Passionately reminiscing,
Former design;
With righteous vehemence,
Strikes freeing strands,
To emancipate such glory.

Yet, as forces pare unevenly,
And tears trickle anew,
The weight of neglect
Burdens the vestiges of youth.
Tense and straining to liberate,
Healed wounds succumb,
Divide and detach,
Falling lifeless upon the linen.
Too old, or too cold,
To bleed the farewell of allure.