The Meeting of Light and Darkness

"The world is fair, the world is fair,"
Sang the goddess of light as she walked
Up hills that breathed dawn into dewy air,
And down slopes where small streams talked.
"The world is fair, and I am young:
The Lady of Light, the Sister of the Sun."

She had clothed herself in form,
This fourthborn of sisters six.
Her skin was warm as sunlight is warm,
Her hair like the dawn where colors mix
Of pearl and blue and cloudy gray
That break apart in harsher day.

Her eyes were blue, and then they were gold,
Radiant as new light in the east,
Young and bright-breathless as a tale untold
That lies on the tongue like a feast.
She was brilliant, yes, but more, was bright:
The goddess in mortal form, goddess of living light.

She crested a hill like a wildfire spark,
And found herself looking down into a vale
Where there lay smothering dark upon dark
Ready to end the light's untold tale.
She paused, and her hair like living flame
Flurried about her in gusts as brief as fame.

She was young, and the sun stood high.
Had she been older, more innocent-wise,
And seen the sorrows of the world pass by
Shimmering before her blue and golden eyes,
She might have been more careful. But she was young,
The Lady of Light, the Sister of the Sun.

She came down, and the dark rose up,
And she saw a lord there, on the grass,
Slender fingers clasped about a golden cup,
Lying as if waiting for her to pass.
He gazed upon her with an admiring smile,
While she gazed critically at him the while.

His skin was black, with a satiny sheen,
Glistening like a newborn dragon's scales.
His eyes were dark, with a hint of dark deep green,
Like the wildwood in which a wild wind wails.
He uncoiled, movements as graceful and lithe
As nightmares which through a dreamer's head writhe.

His long hair hurried slowly down his back,
And then sprang away into darkening whirls.
She could not see if he was clad in midnight black,
Or simply had long and jet-dipped curls.
He was clad in darkness as she was in light:
Brother of the Moons and Stars, Lord of Living Night.

They stared at each other in wonder,
Eyes that held the brightest of dawn's hues,
And eyes half-full of dreaming thunder.
Then in a flurry of golds and blues,
The Lady of Light to him held out her hand,
And he, in obedience to her silent command,

Laid his slender-fingered hand in hers.
Gold and black in that vale entwined,
And he, in the faintest of mocking whispers,
Echoed the words that were foremost in her mind:
"We should never love, and yet we shall-
The two powers who love this world most of all."

She smiled and nodded to him,
Knowing that there would be those who would never see
That this was no mere youngling's whim,
Or that Darkness is not Evil embodied.
They would not see it was the greatest romance-
Darkness and Light partnered in love's dance.

She wrapped a golden arm about his waist,
On his cheek laid the living flame.
His dark arm about her shoulders he placed,
And the living darkness about her came.
They walked on, into their shared story-
Light and Darkness, but Lady and Lord of glory.