She waits by the river for her deliverance
An angel dreaming of sin
Clutching at whispered poison in her innocence.

Honeyed lips bee-stung with memories
Red and ripe, bountiful
Stained with summer’s berries.

Guileless eyes filled with unshed tears
And still she hopes
Even as those hoof beats near.

She glanced back, this Lady of Shallot
Cursed by her plight
To yearn for more than she ought.

With ropes for her wrists and a cloth for her eyes
They bind her tight
With many a chorus of despairing sighs.

Fair of face and fair of form--a heart so forlorn
Her body a temple where he came to worship
Leaving her with virgin’s flesh torn.

Only a mortal man is he, and in his guilt
Called her devil whore
But not until after he’d spilt.

Devil’s whore, evil witch, to spread thighs so pure
A temptation sent from Hell
The test no man could endure.

For we are only flesh and the flesh is weak
See how her captors even now
Forget that holy truth they seek?

I’ll love you until eternity
These words spoken
In black and desperate anonymity.

In secret they came together
From the dark confessional
To lay down beneath the clouds in the heather.

So a whore is she, the innocent maid
And by love and loving
Was she so cruelly betrayed.

The hands of the priest were once tender
When they caressed
This girl so young and slender

The river is her redemption, it is the key
She will pass the witch’s test
And only then will sorrow set her free.

A smile for her murderers, they know not what they do
She falls without regret
Into that deep empty blue.

Not a witch, as she does not rise
And her lover-priest
Is left alone beneath shifting skies.