The Good Knight

By Sean Dempsey, 07/08/25

The Good Knight

He took no oath before her eyes,
Nor knelt where others came.
He watched the world behind her gate,
And never spoke his name.

They say he once was something more,
A banner, or a flame;
But all he kept were ragged threads
And shoulders bowed with shame.

He waited where the garden ends,
Where lamps begin to fade.
Through frost and feast, through dusk and drum,
He kept a silent blade.

His shield was cracked, its symbols lost,
Save three faint marks of grace:
Her initials etched by calloused hand,
And worn into the face.

Her world was lace and laughter-filled:
A hall of glass and gold.
He stood beyond, like winter stands
Outside a fort too old.

One night a masked intruder crept
Through shadows toward her bed!
A dagger drawn with poisoned point,
A path where silence led.

But steel met steel before the blow,
A cry cut through the dark.
The stranger fled, the house was saved…
Yet one man lay pale and stark.

She never stirred. She never knew
How near her death had come.
She woke and rang for early tea,
And asked about the sun.

They told her nothing. Let it pass;
No reason to alarm.
What use to burden gentle ears
With tales of foiled harm?

She passed the place he’d always stood
With no one left to claim.
His shield was buried with his bones;
And she never knew his name.