Sun of my shadows, light of my darkness.
I write this kneeling by the window of my chamber, moonlight and shadows casting unnatural, waving shadows, ghosts grinning malevolently at my agony. How long ago was it that I saw you last? Your pale skin nearly luminous in the moonlight, silver-blonde hair cascading down your back, striking green eyes searching my soul and finding it a pitiful, withered thing, unworthy of your love.
Perhaps I will never see you again. The jeweled dagger lies before me. It is fitting, somehow, that I should die by this dagger.die by such a richly carved dagger, garnets and sapphires gleaming in its hilt. I see my face reflected, distorted in the jewels, and I think of my pitiful life. Would my life be different had I been a serf? Or is it my destiny to suffer so, my riches inconsequential in the face of this prearranged fate?
Yes, if merciful Heaven does not send me succour from these spectres, you will never read this letter I now indite, and, consumed like a torch by the light of my own torment, I will become dark to your eyes, as to the moon, who, rejoicing too much in the light of her Sun, gradually consumes her journey beyond the far curve of our planet, bereft of the beneficent rays of her sovereign star, first growing thin to recall the sickle that severs the thread of life, then ever-paler, she is completely dissolved in that vast cerulean shield where ingenious nature forms heroic heraldry, mysterious emblems of her secrets. Bereft of your gaze, I am blind for you see me not, dumb for you address me not, oblivious for you forget me.
And, alone, I live, burning dullness and tenebrous flame, vague spectre that in this adverse conflict of opposites my mind imagines ever the same, and so would convey to yours. My soul is already buried in the cold, cold grave, hidden in some deep sarcophagus open to every sun, in an impregnable prison that offers me everywhere escape. Oh, my precious love, I continue this deathlike existence solely for the hope of your love alone, though this love tortures me and kills me, a star burning within me, overwhelming me, drowning me in waves of agony.
My Lady, how can I expect mercy from one who is destroying me? And yet to whom, if not to you, can I confide my suffering, seeking solace, if not in your listening, at least in my unlistened-to words? If love is a medicine that heals every pain with a yet greater pain, can I not perhaps conceive of it as a suffering that kills through excess every other suffering, until it becomes a balm for all save itself? A serpent, devouring its own tail, until eventually it has devoured itself? For if ever I saw beauty and wanted it, it was only in the dream of you, and why should I lament that another beauty is for me equally a dream? It would be worse if I made that beauty mine and were sated with it, no longer suffering with the image of you: for scarce balm would I enjoy, and the sickness would increase in the remorse for that infidelity. Better to trust in your image, the more so now that I have glimpsed once again an enemy whose features I do not know and perhaps wish never to know. To ignore this hated phantom, may your beloved phantom sustain me. May love make of me at least an insensitive shard, a mandragora, a fountain of stone that weeps away every anguish.
Yours unto Valinor and the Halls of Mandos
I write this kneeling by the window of my chamber, moonlight and shadows casting unnatural, waving shadows, ghosts grinning malevolently at my agony. How long ago was it that I saw you last? Your pale skin nearly luminous in the moonlight, silver-blonde hair cascading down your back, striking green eyes searching my soul and finding it a pitiful, withered thing, unworthy of your love.
Perhaps I will never see you again. The jeweled dagger lies before me. It is fitting, somehow, that I should die by this dagger.die by such a richly carved dagger, garnets and sapphires gleaming in its hilt. I see my face reflected, distorted in the jewels, and I think of my pitiful life. Would my life be different had I been a serf? Or is it my destiny to suffer so, my riches inconsequential in the face of this prearranged fate?
Yes, if merciful Heaven does not send me succour from these spectres, you will never read this letter I now indite, and, consumed like a torch by the light of my own torment, I will become dark to your eyes, as to the moon, who, rejoicing too much in the light of her Sun, gradually consumes her journey beyond the far curve of our planet, bereft of the beneficent rays of her sovereign star, first growing thin to recall the sickle that severs the thread of life, then ever-paler, she is completely dissolved in that vast cerulean shield where ingenious nature forms heroic heraldry, mysterious emblems of her secrets. Bereft of your gaze, I am blind for you see me not, dumb for you address me not, oblivious for you forget me.
And, alone, I live, burning dullness and tenebrous flame, vague spectre that in this adverse conflict of opposites my mind imagines ever the same, and so would convey to yours. My soul is already buried in the cold, cold grave, hidden in some deep sarcophagus open to every sun, in an impregnable prison that offers me everywhere escape. Oh, my precious love, I continue this deathlike existence solely for the hope of your love alone, though this love tortures me and kills me, a star burning within me, overwhelming me, drowning me in waves of agony.
My Lady, how can I expect mercy from one who is destroying me? And yet to whom, if not to you, can I confide my suffering, seeking solace, if not in your listening, at least in my unlistened-to words? If love is a medicine that heals every pain with a yet greater pain, can I not perhaps conceive of it as a suffering that kills through excess every other suffering, until it becomes a balm for all save itself? A serpent, devouring its own tail, until eventually it has devoured itself? For if ever I saw beauty and wanted it, it was only in the dream of you, and why should I lament that another beauty is for me equally a dream? It would be worse if I made that beauty mine and were sated with it, no longer suffering with the image of you: for scarce balm would I enjoy, and the sickness would increase in the remorse for that infidelity. Better to trust in your image, the more so now that I have glimpsed once again an enemy whose features I do not know and perhaps wish never to know. To ignore this hated phantom, may your beloved phantom sustain me. May love make of me at least an insensitive shard, a mandragora, a fountain of stone that weeps away every anguish.
Yours unto Valinor and the Halls of Mandos