208 Results in the "Poetry" category


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      The Cross-Roads

      The Cross-Roads Cover
      by LovelyMay In this chapter titled The Cross-Roads, the story opens with a silent fracture, one that grows steadily between Charlotta and her husband, Herr Altgelt. His devotion to music becomes an escape from the quiet turmoil within their home, each note pulled from his violin carving out more space between them. Charlotta, once content in his presence, now feels invisible—her feelings reduced to background noise as he retreats into the structure of his compositions. Her locket, once cherished, now tightens in her…
    • A Roxbury Garden Cover
      by LovelyMay In this chapter titled A Roxbury Garden, the story opens with laughter echoing down sunlit paths as sisters Minna and Stella dash side by side, hoops rolling ahead like extensions of their glee. The gravel crackles beneath their shoes, and their sashes ripple behind them like banners in a breeze. Each twist and tumble of the hoops sparks new delight, as if the garden itself plays along, blooming brighter under their joy. With every chant—“Go, go, golden ring!”—the game lifts into something more…
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      1777

      1777 Cover
      by LovelyMay In this chapter titled 1777, the reader is drawn into a world that pulses with sensory richness and quiet intensity. The story opens beneath a trumpet-vine arbour, where summer’s heat is not only felt but heard through the vivid flare of red blossoms. Their shapes resemble miniature brass instruments, each flaring open as if shouting in color. Amid this blaze, a woman leans forward, quill in hand, focused on the task of writing. The sun presses through the leaves, casting patches of molten light across…
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      The Fruit Shop

      The Fruit Shop Cover
      by LovelyMay In this chapter titled The Fruit Shop, Jeanne Tourmont steps into a narrow street alive with dust and echoes of change, her muslin gown trailing the ground and bonnet shading her determined eyes. Her errand is simple—to buy fruit—but the world she enters is layered with history and hardship. The shopkeeper, Monsieur Popain, greets her from within a canopy of ivy and vines, his face weathered like the fruit he tends. Though his display of pears, oranges, and pomegranates shimmers with sun and color, a…
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      Malmaison

      Malmaison Cover
      by LovelyMay In this chapter titled Malmaison, the scene opens with the estate shimmering under the French sun, its roof catching the light as the Seine glides nearby. Within this idyllic setting, Citoyenne Beauharnais pauses by the gates, weary from her walk and filled with a quiet cynicism. She questions whether the famed roses inside can match their reputation or if, in a time so steeped in blood and upheaval, the guillotine would greet her instead. As the iron gates creak open, her thoughts are interrupted by the…
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      The Hammers

      The Hammers Cover
      by LovelyMay In this chapter titled The Hammers, the opening scene offers a quiet juxtaposition—an English estate slowly overtaken by time, where roses bloom beside crumbling walls and silence speaks louder than memory. The stillness is not merely rural peace but a kind of hush before the resurgence of national effort. Soon, that quiet is broken by rhythmic pounding—metal on metal, the sound of labor shaping destiny. In Frindsbury, 1786, the shipyards stir with the energy of creation as hammers rise and fall in…
    • Two Travellers in the Place Vendome Cover
      by LovelyMay In this chapter titled Two Travellers in the Place Vendome, the story unfolds with a quiet spectacle—a funeral procession, unusual in both dignity and detail, proceeding along a dusty path to Longwood. Sixteen Chinese bearers walk in unison, each carrying a coffin meant not for sixteen, but for one man. Among them, one coffin once served as a dining table, adding a note of dry humor to the otherwise solemn occasion. Their cargo is a small figure in stature but immense in legacy. The atmosphere is…
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      The Bombardment

      The Bombardment Cover
      by LovelyMay In this chapter titled The Bombardment, the narrative opens with a powerful chorus of unity, describing men from every walk of life—bankers, blacksmiths, painters, and field hands—marching with shared purpose. These men do not crave bloodshed but endure its toll in pursuit of a peace worth sacrificing for. They are driven by an inner fire to extinguish the need for weapons altogether, breaking the symbolic sword into fragments that scatter like dying stars. Their hands, used to tools of craft or…
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      Lead Soldiers

      Lead Soldiers Cover
      by LovelyMay In this chapter titled Lead Soldiers, the story begins with the unstoppable advance of a fire devouring a once-grand cathedral, illuminating the sky with its cruel brilliance. Smoke spirals upward while stained-glass windows crack and melt, unable to withstand the blaze’s assault. The flames move like a creature unleashed, curling around doorways and beams, swallowing relics, manuscripts, and lives built over years. Citizens scatter, their panic no match for the fire’s focus, and even the…
    • A Ballad of Footmen Cover
      by LovelyMay In this chapter titled A Ballad of Footmen, a somber meditation unfolds through poetic cadence and biting irony, pulling readers into the absurdity of war waged at the expense of reason and compassion. Rather than drums and marching orders, the tale begins with an old man clinging to the scent of roses as his city falls—a symbol of peace clashing against the thunder of conquest. The soldiers are not painted as heroes but as men swept into violence by the shallow promises of power and patriotic thrill.…
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