keeper’s lament

I am the daughter of a poor estate.
With no dowry there’s no man who’d have me as wife.
The tower called out so gently to me,
Said a keeper’s oath would set me free.
The years pass by, and the nights and the days,
And the people may change but my works stays the same.
Though I love them well they leave anyway,
While here in the tower alone I stay

“Keeper’s Lament,” by Anne Harlan Prather, based on Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover novels