To Roxanne, on Her Birthday.

Around the courtyard, brown leaves chase their tails,
The ivy-strangled walls are stone and high,
Within, the virgin weeps as sunlight fails,
And nuns, like sparrows, tend her every sigh.
A maiden forty years, and maiden still,
An icy heart that sunning never warms,
Yet faithful to a love time cannot kill,
She mourns the man who twice died in her arms;
The young cadet, whose beauty stormed her gate,
The poet shy, whose face the night concealed,
Oh handsome lad, your protest came too late,
Too late, oh bard, when your truth was revealed.
And so she sits, lamenting wasted years,
Re-reading letters stained with blood and tears.

Outside the walls, young Gaston leans and waits,
For dinner's bell to call his angel bound.
(He knows her path will pass the convent's gates.)
In his twelve years he's heard all men expound,
Upon her charms, and her sad tale retold,
'Til, heart full, Gaston vowed to make her whole,
And wrote, with timid hand and spirit bold,
A psalm of love to unchain her locked soul.
Love and dove and arms and charms, night and day,
He wrestled for the words to turn her ear,
To set his angel flying, up, away,
To his side, to the one who holds her dear.
"Oh peal, oh bell, and call her to my hand,
Where, unfettered, she must desire to land."

And now the bell it tolls, and so she'll rise,
Clutching her letters to her tear-damp breast,
And walk, without even lifting her eyes,
To her mean meal. Gaston, with swelling chest
And choking voice, will call to her, "Mam'selle?"
She'll turn, but slow, and see his beardless chin,
His eyes awash with longing, and he'll tell
Her how he cries to think of her within,
And he without. He'll tell her then the way
He would her woo; with sonnet and ballade,
To lift base love from its earthly play,
To heaven's shore, to rival that of God.
With his small hand, he'll pass the letter in,
With knowing nod, she'll open and begin.

And as she reads, her breast will flutter so,
And catches faint will slip into her breath,
And having read, the lady will sure know,
The one true love to rescue her from death.
And locks will crack and convent walls will fall,
And to the church they'll fly before the wind,
And there the two will wed in sight of all,
Then home and hearth, their love will never end.
Again the bell. It causes him to start,
for here she walks, her letters 'gainst her cheek,
She sees him standing, hands across his heart,
A brazen suitor, suddenly grown meek.
"Pray, good young man, do tell what makes you bold,
And what portends the letter that you hold?"

But Gaston's words have fled with his resolve,
He can but stand atrembling like a pup,
And pray to God his hubris to absolve,
So, she to him, and takes the letter up.
With its weight gone, the poet finds his tongue,
"A poem," he croaks, "Milady, on your day."
"How sweet," she says, "a charm from one so young.
I can't imagine what you wish to say
To this old crone." He gasps that she'd blaspheme.
She slits the seal, and as he waits, she reads
His feeble words in sunlight's fading beam,
His bold attempt to save her from her weeds.
Young Gaston churns within like seas enraged,
His heart, his hope, his future there en-paged.

As Roxanne reads, her hand goes to her eyes,
The page begins to tremble like a bird,
And with that, all Gaston's composure flies,
"Tis true, my love, my lady. Every word!"
She smiles and strokes her suitor's boyish face,
She folds the letter in among the rest,
And with his letter in its rightful place,
She turns to join the sparrows in their nest.
But at the door, she takes a last look back,
And she takes care to hide from him her pain,
And to her lips she holds the weathered stack,
Where Gaston's heart forever will remain.
For now, like her, he's trapped in might-have- been,
In love-denied, where even angels keen.