9. Tea, Silence and a Question

Hesitant, soft: a nervous knock.
Silent steps, a door drawn wide.
'I come to see you,' - 'Sir, come in,'
'Welcome to my widow's bower,'
- 'My refuge, free -
- 'Of ring or dower.' -

Highlights, hollows, candle-cast
Flicked her forehead, chased down cheeks.
'Be seated sir. And try some tea?'
She smiled a smile that flashed as false
As trophies trimmed with glass and gilt.
- The teapot trembled, -
- Droplets spilt. -

'I came: the queen said we must speak,'
'Of what I wonder.' Silence stood
As thick as thorns in fallow fields:
- the fruit that thought -
- unspoken yields. -

She sat and sipped her tea, and turned,
Her head set high. 'Of Lúthien's love,'
'And yours, and years long set to song.'
'And how it can be that any maid
- 'dare love with a heart -
- 'by love betrayed.' -

He stared then stood, frowned then faced
The window, watching dust-motes dance
Through empty air. 'Of Lúthien's love
'And mine, my lady? You speak of subjects
'More distinct than stars and sun,'
- 'That never meet -
- 'No matter where they run.' -

'But ask, I'll answer. Private pain
'Once song is solitude no more.'
'Yet lady, pray be brief:'
- 'Such questions stir hot embers -
- 'from the ash of grief..'

She looked about, and bit her lip,
Stood uncertain, steeled resolve,
Then step by step approached, her pace
Precise, a metronomic knock
- steady, relentless, -
- a ticking clock. -

'Is love, my lord, a jealous joy
'Whose savage splendor burns, whose beauty
'Rules or ravishes the soul,'
- 'and ruins what it -
- 'cannot savor whole?' -

'Is love, my lord, a cruel king
'Who binds his daughters from their birth
'To dance or dally at his will, to wed
'The one his word should bless
- 'yet gives no thought -
- 'to happiness?' -

'Is love, my lord, a gemlike jail
'That softly sways atop the trees,'
'Cooled, caressed - a seat of ease,'
'Yet ringed with locks and bars and seals
- 'to bind the beauty -
- 'it conceals?' -

'If this be love, my lord, why then
'I'll hail the hour my heart grows hard!
'I'll live alone by a silent sea
'Untouched, untouching, a fool but free!'
'By Manwe - No! - By Iluvatar above,'
- 'Seal up my heart,' -
- 'If this be love!' -