Til death do us part

Six years have passed since our first meeting, a long summer day no different than any other, forgettable if not for a chance meeting. Of course neither of us could have known then just how important that meeting would be. It was a great summer, one of the best of my life. Throughout that summer friendship formed and a bond grew, but our paths did not yet seem destined to connect. She went to Indiana, and I to Slippery Rock, rival schools and sixty miles apart. And though we stayed in touch that freshman year and at times thereafter, our paths drifted apart and went their separate ways… … Once again a summer came, a summer unlike any other. Once again we were together, at the end of our junior years of college, as if two years had not passed us by, as if the distance that separated us had no longer mattered. It was summer, of course, but that fall we would each have to return to our rival schools and once again be apart. That only made the time we had more precious. It seemed as if we spent every day of that early summer spending time with each other, finding ways to see each other, even if it lasted only a few moments. The more time we spent with each other the more we realized we didn’t want to spend it with anyone else, the feeling was there, though we may not have admitted it yet… … As June ended our bond had become stronger than ever. It happened as naturally as a seed springing a root, and soon it was clear to both of us, as if our minds had finally seen our paths connected, that our bond held stronger than any other. We were in love. Nothing stood in the way of that, not even the distance would lay between each other when fall came, like Beren and Lúthien. From the very first moment we knew our destiny was in each other’s hands and that nothing would get in the way of that, and though it took another two years to make it official, we knew in our hearts all along that it was meant to be… …Til Death Do Us Part…

.... Enchantment healed his weary feet That over hills were doomed to roam; And forth he hastened, strong and fleet, And grasped at moonbeams glistening. Through woven woods in Elvenhome She lightly fled on dancing feet, And left him lonely still to roam In the silent forest listening. He heard there oft the flying sound Of feet as light as linden-leaves, Or music welling underground, In hidden hollows quavering. Now withered lay the hemlock-sheaves, And one by one with sighing sound Whispering fell the beachen leaves In the wintry woodland wavering. He sought her ever, wandering far Where leaves of years were thickly strewn, By light of moon and ray of star In frosty heavens shivering. Her mantle glinted in the moon, As on a hill-top high and far She danced, and at her feet was strewn A mist of silver quivering. When winter passed, she came again, And her song released the sudden spring, Like rising lark, and falling rain, And melting water bubbling. He saw the elven-flowers spring About her feet, and healed again He longed by her to dance and sing Upon the grass untroubling. Again she fled, but swift he came. Tinúviel! Tinúviel! He called her by her elvish name; And there she halted listening. One moment stood she, and a spell His voice laid on her: Beren came, And doom fell on Tinúviel That in his arms lay glistening. As Beren looked into her eyes Within the shadows of her hair, The trembling starlight of the skies He saw there mirrored shimmering. Tinúviel the elven-fair, Immortal maiden elven-wise, About him cast her shadowy hair And arms like silver glimmering. Long was the way that fate them bore, O'er stony mountains cold and grey, Through halls of ireon and darkling door, And woods of nightshade morrowless. The Sundering Seas between them lay, And yet at last they met once more, And long ago they passed away In the forest singing sorrowless.