From deep upon the eventide, which weaved the weald canopy high, I stepped languidly through the fabric of the shadowy veil, and through a forlorn path of arboreous vassalage. Above casts an orbed face of white, rend with the foreground of oaken boughs o’er. Nightfall is in descent as I stagger into the cardinal charge of moonrise, the eastern face of the ridged horizon beyond.

A zephyr breathes the air of petrichor in gusts that rattle the black limbs aloft, and sends the chill of Aeolus to the stage of the lowest woodland tier, as I navigate the earthen artery through to the copse edges. Among the beechen timber, and drenched fronds, the occasional pelting of Adam’s ale sounds contiguously, a mellifluous sonance for the nocturne. The storm tempest departed hours before finding myself stumbling ’round dense thickets of entangling shrubbery, yet water descends from the overflowing vessels of leaves withal.

I walk awkwardly onward while a case of valise appearance taps my right leg with every dithering stride, an annoyance which will persist until the sauntering momentarily concludes at the rivulet fringe. Each footfall results in the muffled clanking of glassware within the infirm bounds of the leather handled case. Psithurisma whispers to me as well as the soughfully calm murmur of streaming water ahead, an indication of the journey’s end ebbing nigh.

I long to taste the savor of the less sanguine merlot from the Provençal Pastures, a lesser counterpart of the divine Cabernet Sauvignon, and recover from the dull stained drain of Lilliputian sapor. But this bitterness I shall taste was none like the dispiritedness that possessed my unclear aspiration. Denial remained within grip, even as I entered the proscenium of the unusually swift flow of spilling baths that collapsed over round, polished, beck stones, the stream which brimmed the weald boundaries.

Split was the forest with this stream seaming a corridor of brook to the tributaries of Cheat, yet so perfect was the solitude of moss shrouded expanse. Without much hesitation I discovered the hollowed bole of a once impressive cedar, the shelter of a curiously concealed chair of basic design. Dropping the case beside the lighted bank of lunar reflection, I dislodged the warping, degenerating chair from its clever concealment, before placing the furniture over the narrowest stream of eave, overlooking a pool of rippling water. Then I located the case where I last placed it, and retrieved the most valuable component of this peculiar ceremony.

Unlatching the clamps of the case, I unfold the sight of two wine glasses, and two dark-green dyed, glass bottles wrapped with identical brand designs. A pour of rose crimson left the case retired to my lap as the service to me that I required, and the fruity aroma of ester permeated the dampness. A sip of draught left sour saccharine filling the cavities of yearning, a sensation that had an unexpected lack of delight. This melancholy increased with the edgy tilt of my head, lending me a view of a second hollowed trunk with another familiar chair within its sylvan demesne.

O’ the pain, why not I just fall into this basin of aphotic swelling? Without Persephone’s company, the drains of rain water fatigued me, and admonished the reality of this lonesome grim. The boughs swayed in agreement with their rustling stir, this hippocrene with its useless, cold glass, and acid drip is all I compass now! I can feel this lachrymose, and it beckons I not waste any future on the wine incited apathy that bestows morning regrets.

The few stars that inhabit the sphere above bestow their light so that through the forest of somber dream, I may be guided back to safety; why did I not heed them before? I peered into the amaranthine mauve, before tilting the bulbous glass up-side-down, spilling the contents into the pools below. After replacing the violet stained goblet, the case was latched again, and the seat removed from the slick, rocky face. It was time to withdraw from the wealds ’till morn greats the earliest men, the best hour to retrieve from the old trunks what they will never cozy again.