For beauty’s sake

The candle wax dripped silently, to its stoned state;
The drink wasted, stayed untouched in its old crate;
The stars scattered, as pearls from a broken necklace
Shone on the blood stained corridors, revealing every trace;
Of where lay the murdered hunchback, still hunched in his death;
It hinted that the oozing red was what he smelled in his last breath.

***

On a castle, atop a crooked hill,
When it was dark, and weather chill;
With demented bats serenading us with a topsy-turvy tune;
Where the food was sumptuous, and no one to prune;
We sat waiting for the hunched butler to leave us be,
So, we could start that which we whispered as our “Loving spree”।

Wolfs howled from the surrounding forest den;
Owls hooted the ominous sighs of the dreary glen;
But, in our lofty abode, oblivious of these obvious omen;
We made passionate love, amidst the billows of white linen;
Pressed against each others bosom, we heard a thud and a faint bleat;
And we felt each others fear, as concertedly our hearts skipped beat.

***

Memory, stay with me! What was it that happened next?
Did I leave you? I think I did, but, under what pretext?
I remember the wooden stairs, and a dusty handle of a creaking door,
I remember a soft breath, and then a shooting pain with a vision gore;
Blood, dazzlingly red, gushed out of my knife-corked wound;
As I crashed in that infinitesimal moment of death, I awoke and was doomed।

There I lay in pain as I realized I had a hump on me;
I found my sneering butler and you, my love, in a negligee;
It was neither you, nor me; I am my own servant, but only in a dream;
It was you, my love, who plunged that knife, I know from your eyes’ gleam;
Oh! Grant me the honour of truth as the hour ends, for pity’s sake do your duty!
Why did you kill me? - And she answered truthfully, “I did it for the sake of Beauty.”