Page:Collected poems Robinson, Edwin Arlington.djvu/306

 Who limed him with her smile and had of him, In token of their sin, what he found soon To be a sort of mongrel son and nephew And a most precious reptile in addition To ornament his court and carry arms, And latterly to be the darker half Of ruin. Also the king, who made of love More than he made of life and death together, Forgot the world and his example in it For yet another woman one of many And this one he made Queen, albeit he knew That her unsworn allegiance to the knight That he had loved the best of all his order Must one day bring along the coming end Of love and honor and of everything; And with a kingdom builded on two pits Of living sin, so founded by the will Of one wise counsellor who loved the king, And loved the world and therefore made him king To be a mirror for it, the king reigned well For certain years, awaiting a sure doom; For certain years he waved across the world A royal banner with a Dragon on it; And men of every land fell worshipping The Dragon as it were the living God, And not the living sin." She rose at that, And after a calm yawn, she looked at Merlin : "Why all this new insistence upon sin?" She said ; "I wonder if I understand This king of yours, with all his pits and dragons; I know I do not like him." A thinner light Was in her eyes than he had found in them Since he became the willing prisoner