Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/705

 INCLUSIVE EDITION, 1885-1918 687

THE KING. "Loosed to adventure early!" Tell the tale.

Gow. Saddest truth alack! I came upon him not a half hour since, fallen from the North Park wall over against the Deerpark side dead dead! a nectarine in his hand that the dear lad must have climbed for, and plucked the very instant, look you, that a brick slipped on the coping. 'Tis there now. So I lifted him, but his neck was as you see and already cold.

THE KING. Oh, very cold. But why should he have troubled to climb ? He was free of all the fruit in my garden God knows! . . . What, Gow?

Gow. Surely, God knows!

THE KING. A lad's trick. But I love him the better for it. ... True, he's past loving. . . . And now we must tell our Queen. What a coil at the day's end ! She'll grieve for him. Not as I shall, Ferdinand, but as youth for youth. They were much of the same age. Playmate for playmate. See, he wears her colours. That is the knot she gave him last last. . . . Oh God! When was yester- day?

FERDINAND. Come in! Come in, my Lord. There's a dew falling.

THE KING. He'll take no harm of it. I'll follow pres- ently. . ..

He's all his mother's now and none of mine Her very face on the bride-pillow. Yet I tricked her. But that was later and she never guessed. I do not think he sinned much he's too young Much the same age as my Queen. God must not judge him Too hardly for such slips as youth may fall in. But I'll entreat that Throne. (Prays by the body.)