The Poddington Project: Christine DeWinter

The Queen's Promenade

A blanket of hush the moon's thrown o'er the land.
She's quietly turned out the light.
The sleepy world dreams through long cold wintry hours--
A dark and a still time of night.
When bare forest branches reach blindly towards sky
Colored black with no promise of morn;
They rattle and whisper. A silent, chill breeze
Eases over the moors so forlorn.
This still world of ice, dark, and quiet does seem
Suspended in time somehow . . . odd.
But nature has waited for years for this night--
The night of the Queen's Promenade.

The gate is thrown open. A footstep austere.
Her expression is sombre and grave.
A terrible majesty shines through the dark--
Her look would rule free man or slave.
Over her gowns lies a cloak plain and black
That makes her fair skin seem more pale.
Whiter than damask, and whiter than snow.
Then from the tall gate did she sail.
Stepping into a land bitter and cold,
Leaving behind gardens green.
The first step of many in that one night's trek--
The Promenade of the black Queen.

No courtiers follow, on watch for sword's iron.
Her edict is that she alone
Will step through her kingdom while it lies asleep,
Do what she must, and be gone.
No chariot pulls her on these streets so drear.
No footman will help her alight.
She alone walks, putting foot before foot.
Every step echoes through the long night.
Though nothing dares move, the long shadows bow
Deep and low across the Queen's track.
They know well to cower on this night of nights,
The Promenade of the Queen black.

She walks mile on mile, posture regal and proud
Past river and houses and shop.
Quietly sober, hood over her face,
'Til at last she does come to a stop.
Standing before her, still in the murk
Lies a house where the family does sleep
Unaware that two royal eyes watch them. They sigh
As their dreaming falls bottomless deep.
Here is the end. To this house she has come,
Past public house, millpond, and shack.
This is the end--though none knew it, that night--
To the Promenade of the Queen black.

From the house comes a flutter of tartalan, white.
A girl from the garden gate stepped
And she looks at the Queen with two violet eyes
That had not that long night yet slept.
"'Tis you," the girl lisps. "They said you would come."
The words echo, shaky and hollow.
The Queen smiles. She laughs, then she parts her red lips
And she proclaims but one dire word: "Follow."
A terrible utterance. She pulls back the hood
To reveal her most glorious facade.
The child, she did gasp--and there was the end
To the night of the Queen's promenade.

So if you go walking, one dark moonlit eve,
And you venture into moorlands deep
Where nature itself seems to lie in unease,
Dreaming, contented to sleep,
And if you should chance on a woman whose hood
Conceals full sight of her face,
You'd best bow and offer your kindliest words,
And all mem'ry of her erase.
For those who remember, and those who would speak
Of her hooded imperious nod
Might find themselves gracelessly serving again
On the night of the Queen's promenade.

(Vance Briceland)