Dorigen 12 The Sea

Tristan left his house and ran to meet

Dorigen unsuspecting in the street.

He waited till he saw her walking there,

And bowing low he greeted her.

‘My lady!  The one in this wide world

Whom most of all I wish to please!

You made a promise many months ago

In the garden just outside the town,

Back in the summer when the roses bloomed.

Remember what you promised then,

For I have done as you commanded me.

Be careful now of what you do and say

For well I know the rocks are all away!’

He bowed and took his leave and left her standing there,

Stunned and stock still as a stone.

Her face was wan, and pale as snow she stood

And could not move.

‘This cannot be, she said. ‘This cannot be.
This runs against the laws of God and nature,
The rules that govern land and sea.’

Cold and hardly knowing what she did,
She wandered homewards.

She walked straight to the cliff beside her door.

Before she looked into the sea
She knew exactly just how it would be.

She gazed on where the sharp, black rocks 
Had always been and now should be

And saw the eddies swirling there alone.

The rocks were gone. 
In the black water there was not a single stone.     

She paused and then began to weep,

‘If I throw myself down in the deep

Into those soft cold waves that gently lap against the cliff,

Then all is solved.

When I have gone beneath the sea,
There is no promise left to keep.’

But then she thought of Roderick .

She saw him sitting on their bed alone,

Holding his face in his quivering hands,
And his strong broad shoulders shaking with his tears.

She turned away from the cliff where she had stood.

She turned from the temptation of the sea

Where all things great and small are swallowed up and lost.

Hardly could she walk as far as her own door.

She went up to her room and scarcely could she climb

The stony stairs, for each step seemed so high.

She threw herself upon the bed

And wept and let her tears fall free.

Her husband was then far away,

And he knew nothing of her pain and tears.

He knew nothing of her sorrow as she wept

Alone on the bed in her cold room.