My tale is told on moonless nights
But only by the brave,
The story of when Night’s thrall sought
To steal the bride of Day.
It was itself a moonless night
An empty, starless sky,
And tight the curtains had been pulled
To keep the void at bay.
As I was sleeping, Bitter Cold
Approached my warm bedside,
His frosted, cracked, and hoary lips
Leered from face petrified.
His nightmare form awakened me
As from stiff jaws he spake.
“Didst thou not know I courted Night
Beneath a dark moon’s wake?”
His fingers shaking, blue with ice,
He beckoned me to look.
From shades drawn back, my window bare
Revealed the sky forsook.
No silvered moon to light the dark
Peered from the frozen pane.
Just empty shadows damming up
A mouth, white-lipped and stained.
Then Bitter Cold spoke frosted words,
And ice formed in the air,
“My lover deems a sacrifice,
A sacred maiden fair,
“Will be the price she asks this hour.
I’ve searched both near and far.
Thou canst not flee before thy fate
That’s writ ‘cross blackest stars.”
“Take not that step,” I cautioned him,
“That leads thee to thy doom.”
Unheeding of my words he lurched
Across the darkened room.
And, as his bony, shriveled hands
Reached for my pulsing throat,
A shiver rippled through the air
And stirred his frigid coat.
The atmosphere, which had been chill,
Grew soft and warm with life.
Beside me stirred a restless god,
And Bitter Cold blanched white.
He staggered in his glacial stride.
His chilly stare was seized
As, from my downy bed, his eyes
The godlike form perceived.
“What is this creature lurking here?”
My husband’s voice was tight.
“Dost he not know he wakens Day
Before appointed light?”
And cowering the thief replied,
“It is my driven task
To seek for Night a maiden fair,
For sacred warmth she asks.”
My lord, reared up, his golden locks
Aflame with wrathful ire
His blazing body seared the air
Alight now with his fire.
“Thou darest to place your frozen claim
Upon the seed of Light!
What ill-placed confidence made thee
Believe thou had such rights?”
“This maiden fair’s no maiden here
But Lover of the Day.
Thou dares’t to threaten Golden Warmth?
Begone from here! Away!”
Then shaking, fearful, Bitter Cold
Did take himself to flight,
And never is he seen again
But on the darkest Night.
