Once I saw a maiden fair

standing by the shore;

The sea had washed her feet till bare

of sand, and then brought more.

The sun shone on her golden curls

as it danced around her face;

The breeze played along and made it twirl,

but it failed to waver her gaze.

Though her eyes kept gazing at the sea,

it looked upon elsewhere;

Perhaps a world where all her dreams

came true, and people cared.

I wished to see what she was seeing,

and gaze upon her thoughts;

I wondered at why she was being

so solemn and distraught.

For, though her face, a chiseled beauty,

and her eyes, two precious stones,

it told a tale of a woeful deity,

abandoned and alone.

Dawn turned dusk and dusk, dawn

as the days ran along its course;

Yet I always remember that beautiful fawn

everytime I gaze the shores.

For, three days hence I saw her last,

I met her one last time;

She had floated down the shore to cast

A tale of horror, blind.

For, now her face was deathly white,

her lips a swollen blue.

Her hair, that once was full of life,

was damp and sickly too.

Oh speak, oh speak, oh maiden fair!

What is your woeful tale?

Is it about your dreams untold?

Or a life of dreadful shame?

Or perhaps it speaks of a lover's kiss,

now laid on another maid?

Oh speak, oh beautiful maiden fair

How goes your woeful tale?