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The Spear of the Lily

"Her gold hair fell on the wall of gold

Like the delicate gossamer tangles spun

On the burnished disc of the marigold,

Or the sunflower turning to meet the sun

When the gloom of the dark blue night is done,

And the spear of the lily is aureoled."

~ "In the Gold Room", by Oscar Wilde

This time of day suits her best, when the pale fire is lit in the belly of the clouds and the strands of the returning sun are kindled in her hair. She has the chimerical, far-away quality of a figure in a painting, rendered in rich tones and perfect composition, light and shadow draped carefully over her body.

Her chin is in the heel of her hand, her face to the window. The retreating night begins to withdraw the cobalt shadows it cast beneath her high cheekbones, giving way before the tidal wave of dawn's glow. The rising sun brings spots of silver to the surface of her eyes, the same soft, shining pale gray of water on a diamond. I've written her dozens of odes to her hair, her eyes, her lips, to her face in its entirety, continuing to court her long after the wedding veil has been put away and the need for wooing passed; but no poem could capture more than a filmy shadow of the real thing. It's all very well to write of sunfire and starsilk, but such things could be said of any woman of much less beauty and spirit.

She is now as I first saw her, a lily; but a lily unfolding at the first touch of spring rather than withering in the death-grip of frost. A particularly apt metaphor at the moment, I suppose, for this day is among the first of that season.

Later in the garden, the mid-morning dew will cling to her hands like lace gloves, and her face will be veiled with her murmuring laughter. At noon her hair will flame with the hues of elanor and marigolds, and in the twilight the evening violet will gleam within her pupils; but this time of day suits her best.