Alcyone and Ceyx

Long ago, 
In the lost Homerian eras,
Wherein the Love was cardinal,
Togetherness saw,
what it is to be dismal,

The beauteous Alcyone,
Daughter of Aelos, the God of the wind,
fell in love,
Devotedly bound to Ceyx,
Son of Eosphorus, the morning star,
with whom,
Her destiny lay beauteously twinned,

Bonded in the sacred vows,
Alcyone and Ceyx, 
were like two inseparable impassioned doves,

But least did they know,
that a sacreligious address,
would stream their fate,
Into an ocean of sorrows,

It echoes in the Hellenic winds,
that the two dedicated lovers,
often called themselves,
as Zeus and Hera,
Had they known their impending misfortune,
Had they fathomed the committed blasphemy,
Their constellations wouldn't have been ruined,
by the Greek God's agony,

Angered by the heresy and desecration,
Zeus pledged to bring remorse,
and so the lovers' fate,
took on a cataclysmic course,

"The waves would be fierce,
baleful shall be the swells,
when Ceyx sets the sails,
He would fall into death's wells"
clamored the tumultuous seas,
blared the thundering sky,

Ceyx set on his voyage to an Oracle,
Unknown to the approaching debacle,
The waters rose to magnific heights,
swallowing the sailors,
with an outrageous sigh,

Ceyx died,
remembering his beloved,
through his final breaths,
He vanished into the vast blue,

Inconspicuous to the dolorous blight,
Alcyone sought for her lover's sight,
every evening as the dusk shall rise,
She awaited his return with unblinking eyes,

Condoling the poor Alcyone's plight,
Hera commanded the raging sea,
To wash ashore Ceyx's lifeless form,

Devastated and fallen, seeing her deceased lover,
Alcyone proclaims,
"Oh ruthless Grecian Gods,
what made thee take my beloved from me!
I hence vow to abandon my form,
For until my soul traverses with his',
I shall stay cold in the brazen sea,
what if I couldn't live with him,
The afterlife shall ignite,
a life bedimmed"

and she drowns in the raging waves

Even the Gods bowed to a love so absolute,
and the Augustan skies echoed,
with harps and flutes,

Bewildered and dazed by love's devotion,
The Gods and Goddesses 
Pronounced in commotion,
"Henceforth, until eternity,
Alcyone and Ceyx, shall embrace continuity,
In the form of exquisite kingfishers,
The two would forever be together,
When the cold takes over every year,
Before the storms begin to sneer,
Halcyon days shall heed,
The seven tranquil dawn-to-dark,
when the birds in love shall breed"

And so the love triumphed,
In its own bizarre splendor,
As the lovers live forever,
Be it in calmness or in winter's thunder,
Classic shall be the Hellenic love lore,
That ended,
and was reborn,
at the Grecian shores..........

(c) S.S