I lit a candle on his wedding day
In Andrew's Cathedral, in Inverness
And knelt a time, before the icon pray'd
A heartfelt wish that gods that listen, bless
That oathtaking.
It was not yet his dawn:
The kirk bare-opened to the morning sun
My prayers and I some thousand miles gone
And I not there to see that troth begun.
A melancholy that I am but there
In heart and not in flesh to wish him well --
On bended knee, I took that cross to bear,
And for the best: I know my eyes would tell
A truth of him and me hard to explain:
My lover, in whose arms I've never lain.
Author:
Darkhawk