My Lady & The Duke

For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we are still just able to endure,
and we are so awed because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
Every angel is terrifying.
And so I hold myself back and swallow the call-note of my dark sobbing.
Ah, whom can we ever turn to in our need?

~Rilke

And her eyes were closed while her lips were slightly parted, the shadows light as a lover's caress; her eyelashes fringed the sadness and hid it away so that the dark remained, only hers, so silent and quiet that none could impugn upon it. The beating of her heart is like the fluttering of wings, so distant, as though she heard it from far, far away, the tolling of the bells in her melancholy sanctuary.

"Let there be a reason for me," she whispered. "Let there be a reason."

And there was a reason. There was a reason. And my Lady in Pearls has been gladdened, for God loves her, as ever He did. So may the joy outweigh all sadness, and may you and the Duke be blessed. So bright the light, and so reverent, and so unashamed, the taste of sunshine on your lips.