The Sawyer of Stil Vale (abandoned)

Would have been a longer, story poem sort of in the vein of Pilgrim's Progress. Set in the same world as my long novel, but after the events of the story.

“The Sawyer of Stil Vale”

 

 

 

The sawyer of the Vale Stil,

Who, shrouded for a snowy pall,

did hang his head against the chill

did shiver, but attend the fall

until, the sun did fall as well

and forest thicken round his post

soft breath he lent for torch-light’s swell

soft steps he carved in going home.

And on, through flurry, on through storm,

And on, through barren mountain pass

And on--until, in passing forth

He touched again, the moon, the grass.

Where set, like heart in nestled breast,

A cabin, which he called his home

The beat of which was lantern-lit

The arms of which were kettle-warmed.

And so he came, his feet to lay

Upon the stolid fender, black

And slumber to the ember sway

And drift; and spring; and then was back.

For at his door there came a rap

As of a gentle (desp'rate?) want

And so he went, that mild man,

To meet his wayward visitant.

 

How shrill, the sigh, the followed her

What warnings were entailed, thus?

What declamates that Eastern Wind?

But for her tears, he heard them not;

And took her in, and took her cloak--

how fell the snow from woolen arms!--

And set her down by fender, black,

And wrapped her in a tattered shawl--

The best he had--and stoked the flames;

Which watch, did she, like phantom play

the players cast, she knew by name,

the ending, though, was marred in gray.

And when the ember curtain closed

(and round her, too--the vacant child)

how sad she seemed, the sawyer, thought,

how cold, remote; how uninspired.

And so he bade her, “Sleep you now,

For you are weary, this I see;

The fire’s well, the fender’s warm,

And I will keep you company.”

No second bid (or first, at that)

Need cross those wan, but lovely, lips

And call for drink, or this, or that,

But it was there; and so she slept.

 

What fevered dreams did haunt her mind?

Why shudder? Why despise thy self?

What anguish dwells beneath so kind

A face? What demons, in her, quell?

 

So passed the night; the sawyer there

Beside her, like an Irish Saint,

Did wipe her brow, her matted hair--

Did stoke, and tend, and quench the flames

Accordingly.  And morning came

But not for rising of the sun;

And not for warmth, or winter’s bane;

But pallid sky, and storm, and numb:

All mentioned not; the sawyer’s hearth

Did glow, and warm, and make forget.

Until, at last, she would give birth

The tale that, I must admit,

Did shock the sawyer, (please forgive)

For he was but a simple man

All cast away, and self-content--

How little could he understand!

 

She wondered if he noticed there

Upon her breast, as like a badge;

And swept aside her auburn hair

In proud display: in stark adage

As culled from storytelling lore

And bandied as some righteous stain,

All colored white, and mocking pure--

How angled, sharp: the letter A.

The sawyer saw, but shook his head

And thought it was a pretty crest;

But wondered, why she shook instead?

Why laugh, and clearly not in jest?

The visitant did stroke her mark

As might her fingers light the flame:

And take some comfort in the lark

And take some pleasure in the pain;

Then spoke, as to the glowing hearth,

Why prettiness was not enough?

Why did the fire not feel warm?

Why did she feel ashamed of love?

The sawyer, by no sugar’d tongue,

Confessed himself at quite a loss

To see from where her sorrow sprung--

To see why she had traveled thus?

“It was no choice,” she did reply,

“Nor preconceived that brought me here,

But fortune smiled--yes, on I--

And I have come.” (she wiped a tear)

“And I will go, and pass away--

For e’er, for that is my reward;

That is the purpose of the A,

That is the curse of my ardor.”

And how she trembled as she spoke,

And pierced that simple sawyer’s heart;

Until that tender organ broke

And A, and woman, came apart.

“You’re free,” he said, and cast away

That mocking emblem to the hearth;

“You’re free, you’re better than the rest,

You’re more than any should deserve.”

What sudden speech, like cannon shot,

Did start the sawyer (how he blushed,

And blamed it on the fire’s hot);

He turned away, but she was touched.

And how, with loving, gentle hands,

She took the sawyer’s in her own,

And brought them to her lips, like sand,

To wet them, and to let them go.

“Tomorrow, I must go away,”

The visitant then sadly swore,

“But I will rest, yet one more day,

And think of you forever more.”

 

So as the snow did fall without,

So too, did tired eyes submit;

The sawyer, though, must block it out--

Must see her well, must not forget

To tend her beaded fevered brow,

To warm her jacket by the fire,

To fill her pack for setting out…

To--many things; but he was tired

Too, and though the blizzard raged

And he was mindful of the boy

He fought--but sleep could not be caged;

He fell into the dreamer’s void

 

Wherein he saw himself at work--

A sawyer, in a sunlit glade--

As from a lofty silent bird,

Considerate, and saw he made

From timbers fell, and skill unknown,

A manor, in some gothic sense:

What pillars do alight the door,

And glow, and cast their glory hence?

And as the sawyer stepped away

In reverie (that well was earned)

The door did open inwardly,

To frame a darkness that then turned

Into a man of many years

Who, as he held aloft a light,

Did look as into Mirrormere,

And search, and search, until his eyes

Did fall upon the sawyer, still;

Did beckon him to come inside;

The sawyer found he had no will,

No voice, no organ to deny.

And so they both were swept within,

(What hand did close that quiet door?)

And passed through hallways, painted dim

And decorated, head to floor,

With paintings of the most obscure

Unhandsome of the Garden’s fruit,

Who watched, as if their eyes were more;

Who spoke, but who (be glad!) were mute.

At passage end, there was a door,

Like window to a cellar, dark,

That for the old man’s touch would yawn,

And delve, and sigh, and pull them forth;

Which at the foot did open to

A chamber gilt in glass and gold--

A sanctum for the vainest lord,

A promise that all truths be told--

But, o, the lying panes did tell

Of faces out of fantasy:

Of desolation and a well,

And walls of dark chalcedony;

Of brimstone trees and fiery vales

Where rampant burn those hungry arms;

Of snow and ice, and crystal shale,

Of mirror lake, of falling charms.

“What game is this?” the sawyer said;

How shrill the sound that filled those halls!

He turned, as no reply he met:

The man was gone, he was alone.

And from the very chamber’s bones

Resounded, like a whisper, faint,

A voice that might have been his own--

A chorus, as of singing rain:

“Young sawyer, of the Vale Stil,

How long must you abhor the sky?

How many stars must shine for you?

How many more will you watch die?”

And silence--as though for response;

The sawyer, though, could speak no word.

How knew they of his greatest want?

How knew they of this greatest fear?

The voice returned; “Your time is short,

But now, and you will travel far;

Look! The sky’s alight again, for

You entertain a shooting star.”

But sawyer could not comprehend--

Or would not (which was likely, too)--

The graveness of such utterance,

And shook his head, and turned, but who

Had locked him in this mirrored cell?

No door, no well, and ladder out

Was there; no method to expel--

Just they, whose voices did resound:

“How quickly you forget the dark

That covered all before she came;

How quickly you discount the star--

But dally, here, and she will fade!

There is no cabin past your own--

How well you know, it was your plan--

And when she leaves, where will she go?

Where will the blizzard let her stand?

She is no tree, or tower strong,

The wind will bend her like the branch

And break her, if you wait too long;

Or was her coming happenstance?”

Such strong reproach, the sawyer knew

He’d earned; and would not dare refute.

Still, what could such as that man do?

How could he stem the most minute

Of tides, if she was drowning there?

What shelter could that man bestow?

What words could whitewash all despair?

What love could that man ever know?

All questions, though they crossed his mind,

Did seem to reach the chamber’s ears:

“You know the answers, deep inside;

You know them, or would not be here.”

“You speak of storms, but storms will pass,”

the sawyer, in his last defense,

“No wind, nor snow, nor gray impasse,

But mired minds, and muddled sense,

Are all that suffocate that star,

And how can I depart the past,

Forever to be part of her,

To follow, and forever last?”

The voices then, in gentle prose,

Did wonder if he was ashamed?

To which the sawyer promised ‘No’,

But he was worried for the rain.

How like the rain those voices sound,

And echo, like a cavern spring:

“Does not the rain still feed the ground?

Yield flowers, fruit; does not it bring

Across the sky, in colors bright,

The promise of the great I AM?

The rain is part of all that’s right,

And beautiful.” And understand

The sawyer did, and did give way;

And wondered then what must he do?

The star was bridled by an A--

The voices said: “That’s up to you.”

 

Then how the chamber disappeared,

But for a single, glowing pane

That shimmered as chrysoberyl,

That sparkled, dimmed, and then displayed

A wonderland of snow and ice,

Of glowing white, and falling stars

That lazed as let by feathered twine,

Of children, and of horse-led cars.

And how the chill did tarry through

The lively pane to fill the room;

The sawyer, who was turning blue,

Would step away--but stepped into

The picture! And howe’er he turned

Saw naught but all a white expanse;

And might have laughed in disconcert,

Or clapped--but could not feel his hands.

The sound of bells then startled him;

Beside him drove some regal sleigh

That might have once been Narnian

That might have carried Ed away;

But from within, a voice so sweet--

As might belong with falling snow--

Informed him that he’d come to meet

The Winter’s Star, who waited now

Impatiently for his approach,

To ask what he had come to ask

To know what he had come to know

To speak his piece and be sent back.

Sweet voice, but cold, the sawyer thought,

And fitting. But he stepped inside;

How frigid was that empty coach!

How long must he endure this ride?

“Where am I?” asked the sawyer, bold--

To whom, it was not evident;

Returned again that voice so cold:

“The Winter of Your Discontent

Has summoned you, or you called it;

No matter, for now here you are:

A land were sky is never lit,

And love has died, and in the Star

The heart that beat for all you see

Has frozen and will never thaw--

That once,” a sigh, “belonged to me,

But I have lost, forever more.”

“Who are, then? I see you not,”

the passenger of that cold sleigh.

How met the silent, slow response:

“I’m all that’s left of love, today.”

No deeper shall this conference delve;

The sleigh, then coming to a stop,

Must put such friendship on a shelf--

Must reach its end, and trail off,

And leave the sawyer in the gloom

Of some Norwegian castle wall

That rose as out of ancient bloom,

That glowered, and that forbade all

Who traveled thus to travel in;

No standard waved, no trumpet sound,

No herald, to that wayward sent--

Just groan, the gate, to make renown

Your grudge against his coming here,

And close, as if you make his end--

Now dim your crystal chandeliers;

Constrict; and howl, a biting wind,

And draw him forth with siren song--

Charade, to ruin many men--

And he, no different, traveled on

And t’ward, until at tunnel’s end

Through archway of resplendent hue,

A courtroom of crystallic sheen

Did open up a vaunting view

That slowed him in his entering.

But as he stood in reverie

Two wolves of gray and great deport

did rise, their hackles clearly seen

 to stand as well, and move toward

the sawyer, who, though frozen through,

did comprehend their warning bay

and enter that prismatic room

to hear what Winter’s Star should say.

How like a snowflake, that cold Queen

Did gently rest upon her throne;

How frigid, though, her probing mien

To light upon our poor hero,

Who knelt, and knew naught else to do,

But mumble unknown deference--

To wait, as until spoken to;

To start, at icy scepter’s touch.

“Arise,” her voice, so like the chill--

so like the falling snow without;

“Arise, and promise what you will,

to save the one you’ve come about.”

Indifferently, she turned away,

To search those icy mirrored walls

As if the sawyer could not say

A word of consequence, at all.

And oh! what great impassioned pleas,

What oaths, what vows of sacrifice,

Would bring that sawyer to his knees;

How gladly would he pay the price!

But how the cold did steal his breath,

Did bind his tongue and cloud his mind;

The fog that lingers underneath,

That emanates from Undefined.

(How tapped the Winter’s child’s hands

against the scepter’s icy sheen

to keep the time, as like the sand;

how restive; how impatiently!)

He pictured her, and saw her A,

And saw her troubled, fevered sleep;

Unmindful--not of why he came,

But relative to why she weeped?

“I do not know,” his voice replied,

(and how it came as from above);

“Her troubles, I can not define--

but I would end them, out of love.”

“Love?” The Winter Star doth laugh--

How shrill, and how contemptuous!--

And fell, her scepter, with a crash;

She rose, and flushed; and then relaxed,

And though it claimed her last restraint

To meet that mild mannered man

As like a babe, and smile faint,

She did step down and take his hand

And guide him, like a shepherd, o’er

That crystal hall, through columns high,

To where, atop a pedestal,

There was a book that said Of Lives

So Fettered Here, Or Else To Be;

What letters, wrought in silver script,

Did gleam as from the deepest freeze.

The pages sighed, in malcontent.

“No remedies, will you find here,”

That snow-born Queen, with false regret,

“Just entries of the insincere,

The cast-off morally bereft.

 See here,” and so the Star did shine

Upon some likeness too well known;

“Her name, is no concern of mine;

Her heart, dear sawyer, ‘s growing cold;

And even she will take her place

Here in the Vale of Discontent.

Your mission’s failed, just like your voice;

You time here was unwisely spent.”

----

Story would have spanned several mostly elemental regions where the titular sawyer would have had to solve some problem and help the people of that place rediscover their purpose or joy or whatever they'd lost. I don't remember it very clearly.