Lay Your Sleeping Head Human on My Faithless Arm

Title: Lay Your Sleeping Head Human on My Faithless Arm
Fandom: Mary Renault, The Charioteer
Author: kenazfiction (kenazfiction@gmail.com)
Characters: Ralph, Alec
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: The characters and settings herein belong to the estate of Mary Renault.
Summary:"There are times," Alec said, peeling back the corner of the blackout curtain to peer outside, "that I imagine I'll miss these awful things when this blasted war is over."

Author's Notes: Originally written for tetsubinatu, Yuletide 2008. In the interest of complete disclosure, I'll acknowledge having tweaked a couple of words since it was posted to the Yuletide archive. While it stands alone, it could also be read as a sort of precursor to Always: Time Will Bring Their Hour. The title, as one astute reader has already noted, comes from the poem Lullaby by W.H. Auden.


Lay your sleeping head, my love,
Human on my faithless arm;
Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeral:
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.


( More... )