Beside a Quiet Stream
I lived in a beautiful valley, beside a quiet stream
It was a place I escaped to when I needed to dream
surrounded by the tallest mountains in the world,
so I believed when I had been an innocent little girl
Pure until he walked down from the mountain high
He came to me without a word, we stood eye to eye
His only gesture was to reach out and take my hand
with that touch, the flames in my heart were fanned.
At last, 'hello,' was but a whisper from his sensuous lips.
He brought my hand to his mouth, kissed my finger tips
and then he said that he'd watched me for many a year,
grow from a child to a woman and I had nothing to fear.
I chose to believe every word that he breathed forth.
I took his other hand in mine and we headed North.
He asked me to journey with him and share in his life
He promised to take care of me as his friend and wife
He said with me by his side, everything we would share
and that for years he'd longed to have me as his lady fair.
It didn't matter where we went or even where we slept
but after a few years, what mattered was that I wept.
I cried because his promises all proved to be untrue.
I cried because I knew there was nothing I could do.
I walked away from him and headed South on my own.
Once again I dreamed in the valley where I lived alone.
The nights were cold as I lay down on the valley floor
there was no more warmth from the man I had adored.
When I slept I always saw the mountains fade away,
not the man who came to me beside the stream that day.
My ears heard a rustling, perhaps it was just the wind
but a shadow fell over me and the sunlight was dimmed.
"Hello," was all he said before he knelt beside me there
Once again he asked if life with him would I like to share.
How long we sat and stared at each other, eye to eye,
I'd not hazard to guess, nay, I'd not even care to try.
I asked, "What have you done in the years since I left?"
He said he'd almost died from a heart sad and bereft.
Four years it had been between 'hello' and 'goodbye.'
Years spent in my valley, where I thought I would die.
He stood before me now, this mountain of a man.
I rose up to my knees and then I held out my hand.
There is a kind of love one can only capture in a dream,
But some can be revived beside quiet waters of a stream.
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