I was once a peasant girl
clad in gray rough woven skirt
and flour sack blouse;
black hair chipped with straw
from the pallet on which I'd lain.
 
Every summer day
I picked berries in the lane
and you'd ride by
in your gilded carriage;
wild black and white stallions
flailing their mains;
champing at their bits.
 
Your blue eyes stared at me
beside parted lace;
two more berries I should reap.
 
When you had gone that day,
a fearsome knight in snapping cape
thundered to my side
and raised me to his beast;
by him I was kidnapped to your distant keep.
 
Now I labor each day in your stables;
dressed in disused but softer, more colorful garb.
Each night, a thin and flickering taper in my hands,
I climb the hidden steps to sleep with you.
 
I have nothing to give you but my breath
and still wetter lips.
And you, you, may not know me
in any way by light of day.
 
I have not even a trinket
to secret in my bosom that you oft kiss.
But I am content.

Your steeds are mine and I love them for us.
I coo to them and kiss them.
I groom them to shine
and call them Night and Day.