Some Say Love Is Dead

Some say Love is dead, but it is we who are dead to Love, who ought be served ; and we, the rebels, thirst in drought for it, and what for nought. Say never She forsook us, when we have shunned her from our homes and hearts. Many upon a season, She, riding fairy-train in the night, hath knocked upon which doors might answer, passing by those locked to her visits. Upon Her neck ride golden those kings gifted to stand within Her graces ; and well you might ask, hath your nation earned a place near to Her, or, having given over all or most to Her rival counterfeit standing in lust of gold who, with seduction, takes the nations upon her shoulders as the pelts of a huntsman, willingly declared forfeit? Do not ask for fruits where you have not watered the tree ; beg not for juice when you have burned the orchards and cast out the gardeners. Homes must be full of love from the first womb's welcome, and congresses of law must lay down righteous boons where love may find its soil in justice. Poets must sing of Her, not alone, but in the forum, their masterspiece given fund from the king's treasury, and then, these true words spoken, the folk must abide by them and give their pledge, so that words have world's backing, and are not vain puffs of air, coins cast from a bankrupt mint, and earn no honor in Her eyes. I know that sad smirk you show, the rotted soul of one who thinks such things dreams, and you wonder why in the jaded smoke of neglect's soot the shining glory of the cat-drawn maiden showeth not Her majesty? This is not a matter one man alone may make, for the fabric of our fibres are sewn together, and their tapestries read hymns or curses to She whose blessings we ought seek before declaring Her dead. She reads those long scrolls our deeds of love or hate declare, and published by the nations, her many a fairy servant-maid distributes what boons are deserved, and you may judge by the harvests how She has been pleased. We gather our gambles from the preset odds grown obscure in the times before we met our would-be beloveds, and the chain of those who have handled and handed on the gem we seek well determines its polish and lustre, or powder of cracked chips. Oh, Lady Love may well give pardons, out to homes where she is honored, yet these are but exceptions to the general rule, a welfare distributed to the nations according to their merits as such, and how Love was met in the seasons' rounds of holy feast days. These are not light matters. Many give lip-service but no service beyond, and those who are not willing to plow and sow and thresh in her lush and wondrous fields have little wonder at meagre harvests. Have you watched the harvestman sweat? Have you seen the oxen toil? Where the soil has been stolen from the forest's natural orchards and vineyards, such labors are needed to eke the fruits from dirt too long sunbaked and left to desolation. Have you the strength, the courage, the faith to imagine an Old Growth love in climax state? Let go of mowings which cut down Love's growings. She seeks to seed your hearts with succession's fruits leading on to those misty sunlit forests where elves dance, but her fair folk will not foot-fall rumba on barren plains where life has fled for corruption. Do the Lady service, and call your kinsmen back to true devotion.