Your Sugar Sits Untouched

Alas (The Knight)

Alas, my love, if I could make you live

And from the page step forth and sit beside me

Or better still, bestride the steed I gave you

Wrapped close within the cloak I lent to hide thee

Perhaps I'd venture forth to ask thy name

Since while thou liest underneath my pen

That honour given which the poorest claim

Unjustly was withheld. But if again

I held thee captive as I did ere now 

Stalling to pass my fingers through the last

Of midnight tendrils, or peruse thy brow

In fear of sending off what heaven cast

Too early for my insufficient mind

To grasp the fullest detail and retain

The presence that your image left behind

That thou in all thy glory should remain

I fear my oversight I would not mend

For now upon reflection I confess

That secretly I never did intend

With title long or surname rich to bless

But rather let in my imagination

Run wild the thoughts of who perhaps you were

Before your soul demanded your creation

And deigned my mind and willing heart to stir

For such a noble and impassioned face

Could well be but newborn unto this sphere

But sure among a distant beauteous race

Thou hast known more than all who dwelleth here

And could tell much of places thou hast seen

And battles fought for honours won and lost

And how each service done a faerie Queen

Becomes a brighter jewel than it cost

The ladies of your world, you may impart

Desire to be neither over-graced

Nor underrepresented in the art

Of living, where their lips were meant to taste

A sort of feline stealth they wear about them

And while a flame of innocence they hold

In forests dark you fear to be without them

For knights of maler kinds are ne'er so bold

Yes, in thy orb a maid may be a knight

(Thou knew'st a friend would make upon this news)

Without a whisper loud or censure slight

For lords are not afeared their stock to lose

Where no stock may be taken or be kept

No property be granted, nor no bride

No maiden may be stolen while she slept

Nor robbed of her freedom to decide

What suits her best. No county's law is needed

To cut the weed of violence from the stem

No danger for the law to go unheeded