A King's Solitude

Encloistered I live in a tenebrous place At the depth of my soul, with no love and no friend, Alone like a god, with no equal to face, Save mine ancestors sleeping their sleep without end. For grandeur is solitude! All the long day A changeless, an indolent idol I stand; Superhuman and cold in my castle I stay, The purple upon me, the world in my hand.

Crown of thorns like to Christ's they have set on my hair. Under weight of my terrible splendour I bow, And the sharp, golden rays of the nimbus I wear; Bright drops of blood-royal I bear on my brow. Heraldical vultures come tearing my side. Prometheus chained to his mountain and cast To the tempest of heaven, the wrath of the tide, Was only a king to his glory made fast.

Throned high on my mystic Olympus, I note But the voices of flatterers flocking in line, — Sole cadences counted as worthy to float Unto summit so lofty, so distant, as mine. If wild with oppression my people upswarm, And rattle their irons and moan in their fear, — “Sleep, Sire,” they tell me, “it is but the storm. The thunder shall slacken, the sky shall be clear.”

I've power for all things, and pleasure for none. Ah, would I might know one deep wish in my heart, Feel life in its warmth flood my bosom of stone, Share one true delight, in one feast have a part! But lonely the sun in its circle must go. High peaks are the coldest, and never a spring, And never a summer can soften the snow On height of Sierra, in heart of a king!

Le Roi solitaire