The Would-Be Queen (from Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron)
There once was down by misty waves
A grot in which she lay
The princess in her southern grave
Where waves doth gently play
Trav’lers passing by the headland
Soft ask, afraid to say
Why she, so fair, is now but sand
That blows around the bay
Her eyes were once of startling blue
Her hair of molten gold
She wore a dress that danced and flew
In ev’ry silken fold
Alas, the story doomed to tell
Since long-gone times of old
Her dress became a shell, wrapping
Wasted arms in its hold
Court ladies ling’ring by the hill
Oblige curious ears
“She dared love, he dared to kill
Now we bathe in her tears
The king sits lonely in his room
Listen close, and one hears
The ghostly creaking of his tomb -
Sighs from the would-be queen,”
The king yet nurses the glass bowl
From whence she took a sip
The toxic juice, like shadows, stole
Up to her crimson lip
She held her love’s heart to her cheek
Tears flowing with worship
She wept, “To love is never weak,”
Then away she soft slip’d
One day the rocky grot will cave
The travelers will find
Another road, another grave
To slowly, sadly wind
But today all talk of the heart
The eternal-held bind
From which she could not bear to part
Her lovely human mind