Once, as a child, she envied the swans.
In her father's house, amid the bloom
of wind wisps, and her budding dreams,
they soared in pairs, matched in love.
In silence, white-winged, without fear,
songless themselves, they lived in song.

Now, when her voice is raised in song,
She thinks of them, those drifting swans,
thinks of her hope and of her fear -
That what she found, this new-grown bloom,
her simple joy and mortal love,
is held hostage to her dreams.

Her Conductor comes to her in dreams.
Stern and cold, He shapes her song.
Perhaps, she feels, this too is love.
But He cares not for mated swans,
for the sweet-scented wind wisp's fading bloom,
or for a mortal woman's fear.

But still, you say, why should she fear?
Her fame is more than any mortal dreams -
does He not crown her with undying bloom?
She is not the singer, but the song:
a creature created, a captive swan,
for the music that is His greatest love.

She had her courage - she chose her love.
Despite her Lord, despite her fear,
she wished once more to see her swans,
and salve her soul with simpler dreams.
A city she had raised with song;
she could not stay to watch it bloom.

Yet fate denied her life's full bloom,
and war has no respite for love.
Nothing now is left of her but song,
transcended beyond death and fear.
Her father's house still keeps her dreams,
guarded by the silent, singing swans.