Title: Shadow of a Song
Fandom: The Keltiad (books by Patricia Kennealy-Morrison)
Rating: G
Length: 159 words
Content notes: Reference to character death
Summary: What songs does a lost harp hold within?

Author notes: This is a poem or set of lyrics inspired by The Keltiad, noteably by the characters of Aeron Aoibhell, Ard-Rian of Keltia and Gwydion, Prince of Gwynedd. In canon, Gwydion was a skilled harper, and he and Aeron were married to one another. Other than that, the poem departs from known canon.

It is set to the Manx tune Ny Kiree Fo Naightey (The Sheep Under the Snow). There is a lovely version of here on YouTube by Northern Lights (though it doesn't include the last repeated phrase that I use in the lyrics).

For a downloadable version of the tune (mp3), I'll link to my own recording performed on wire-strung clarsach - The Sheep Under the Snow. (I don't sing, so the lyrics run through my head as I play and color my interpretation of the music.)

__________________________________________________
Shadow of a Song

In a deep dusty corner of a cold glittering cave
the small harp lay forgotten upon the ancient poet’s grave.
Her strings are torn and dusty, in silence too long
but around her still lingers the shadow of a song.

Her voice once rang boldly thru a cold winter’s night
and the warriors in the feast hall ceased to quarrel and fight.
Her voice then rang more sweetly over mountain, hill and stream
as her harper sang to his lover of impassioned hopes and quiet dreams.

At a wedding and a birthing, joyous songs you once gave.
At the passing of an Ard-Rian, you wept upon a new-made grave.
Your harper then was royal – to that Ard-Rian he was wed.
When she died, he could no longer sing, and you lay in silence on his bed.

I lifted the small harp from her silence too long.
Oh sing for me, once more set free
your shadow of a song.
______________________