No Man's to Own

[Verse 1] The hall is alight and the fiddles begin, and a mage bows the room with a smile worn thin. She shimmers in silk where the candleglow falls — a stranger he knew, in these gilded halls. [Pre-Chorus 1] He had carried her letters three winters and more, every promise she penned, now ash on the floor. They had told him the tale ere he crossed the gate — of all she had loved while he lay in wait. [Chorus 1] So dance, fair lady — dance on without him. He'll not lift a hand where the dark will suffice. The fire he carries could level the city, but she, in the end, is not worth the price. So turn with another 'neath chandelier glow; he stands in the shadow and lets the night go. [Verse 2] She laughed as she used to, but not at his side, her hand in another's, her eyes open wide. He watched the old gestures he thought were his own performed for a stranger, like seed freely sown. [Chorus 2] So dance, fair lady — dance on without him. The years that he gave her lie ash in the grate. He'll not raise the fire, though the fire would free him — some debts are best left to the patience of fate. So turn with another while candleglow's bright; the pit that she dug will be waiting tonight. [Verse 3] A plain man, no mage, laid a chain at his throat — a rank and an honor; the gallery floats. And the fool never knew, as he raised the mage high, that those very hands had known her, by and by. [Pre-Chorus 2] So here's to the chain, and the rank, and the gold, and here's to the warmth that she left to grow cold. He lifts her a glass — may it find her as kind as the many she gathered, and left all behind. [Chorus 3] So dance, fair lady — dance on without him. He was pinned an honor by the hands that knew her. He'll spend no more flame on what fate will see to — the court keeps its ledger, and the bill will fall due. So turn with another while the candles burn white; he's nowhere to be but well out of her sight. [Bridge] [90 BPM, stripped, piano + soft synth, F major, vulnerable] He'd have her as once she was, the girl that he knew... but the ink has long faded; and so has she, too. He set down the letters. He set down the ache. There's nothing to save, and there's nothing to break. [The Turn] And see how they gather — her gallants, by name, each one was promised the whole of the flame, now souring to learn they were never the one; the murmur runs round, and the maiden's undone. A maid of the court who was no man's alone — and now, in the blaze of it, no man's to own. And he? He is kept by a gentler accord: two ladies of patience, of wit and of word, who ask of his station and laugh at his jest, who seek not a conquest, but value the rest. He bows, and he offers his arm and his time — no fire, no folly. Just candle and wine. [Final Chorus] So dance, fair lady — dance on without him. The whispers have found her; the room turns its face. He'll not even watch while the dark works it freely — he bows to the kind ones and quits the cold place. So turn, if she can, in the blaze she has lit; he is gone, and he'll carry no candle for it. [Outro] And he stands in the dark where the kind voices are, a glass, and a smile, and a rank, and a star. She'll burn in the light that she begged for, in time — and he'll not even stay to watch.