True Hearts

Come, my lord, no hurry hast thou.
Come and drink with me,
In the shade of a weeping willow bough,
Looking out to sea.

Come, my lord, drink this cool wine.
It was a gift for me
From a lady who might have been divine,
And now one for thee.

What? Who was she? Thou canst not desire-
Very well, then, insist.
She was a lady made of heaven’s fire,
All that might be wished.

Her name was Daralya. Musical, no?
She came to meet me
On a day like this, when the wind weeping low
Came blowing from the sea.

She settled at my side, to sea gazed afar,
And said-no warning-,
"I long to see the place where the western star
Comes up in the morning."

When I asked why, she told what she would,
A tale of her lost dear,
Gone to sea so long ago that some said she should
Give him up and here

Take another who would love and cherish her.
That, she would not do.
She said-more often, as I came to know her-
"True hearts are always true."

Of course I loved her. Who could not?
It was not her beauty,
For she had the kind of face that is oft forgot.
But she remembered duty,

And honor she loved, with a deepest passion
That most often the mothers
Forge for their children, in some wan fashion.
She scared and drew the others.

But me she only drew, at times fascinated.
I dreamed of her at night.
Sometimes I would think the loss of her love fated-
And then by sunset light

I would look on her, on that ever-hoping face,
And feel small and petty.
She was ever walking, with her seabird-like grace,
On the shore, by the jetty,

And speaking of how she loved him, what he was,
To inspire such devotion.
She sometimes said that it was not without cause
That he was lost on the ocean,

"For surely the Queen of the Sea Herself,
Couldn’t have resisted forever.
They say that his grandfather, by an elf,
Was taken away forever,

"And my love has the same fair and noble heart,
The same loving grace of life.
Perhaps it is by his persuasion, his musical art,
That the sea has lost its strife."

And indeed, in the scant year I knew her,
I never knew such calm
From the sea; that year it seemed to whisper,
As if to be a balm

For the wounds of Daralya, the lovely one
Who had lost her love.
She would sit by me in the scarlet set of sun,
And, cooing like a dove,

Tell me of faithfulness and of the heart’s strength,
To love as she would do.
She would tell me about him, then say at length,
"True hearts are always true."

Then, I waited for her to come one afternoon,
And she never came.
I sat by the shore long past the rise of the moon,
And then heard the same

News that had been rounding the village for a day.
They said she had gone,
That Daralya had tired of waiting and gone away
As the migrating swan

Will rise and go south with her mate in the spring.
But she had no mate,
And though some said with a stranger she took wing,
That she could not wait,

I think she would have waited forever for her lover.
I think-well, my lord,
I will appreciate that it seems strange to uncover
This tale, that not one word-

Very well, then. If thou wilt hear then the end,
Or what I think it is,
I firmly believe that I was too much her friend,
That she knew I would miss

Her too much to leave me without a single word.
But I appreciate the truth:
What I am about to say will all seem simply absurd,
The dreams of a romantic youth.

But on the night that they say Daralya disappeared,
The sea had a voice.
We all watched it, for a storm or hurricane we feared.
But it remained turquoise,

And as I rose and turned away to go to my bed,
I heard a gentle splash.
And I could have sworn that a voice said
A few words in a flash

Of water that I did not understand. Curious, I turned,
Half-wondering, half-afraid,
Thinking that I might see something strange and be burned
By, say, the eyes of a mermaid.

But I only saw a flash of white-as white as her gown-
Slipping away from me.
I am convinced she stepped from the shore and went down
Into the depths of the sea,

And that as she slipped away forever from the land and shore,
A few words made it through
The waves that had wed her with her love once more:
"True hearts are always true."

And so I sit and drink the wine that she gave me,
Sometimes, here, at sunset.
When I can bear to look upon the calm or savage sea,
Burning with sun-scarlet.

And now, my lord, thou hast heard all the tale.
Now there falls the night
I will sit here until the next morning takes sail,
Until arrives the light,

And think and contemplate on what she said to me.
Do what thou wilt do.
Farewell! Remember, if you look upon the sea:
"True hearts are always true."