Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/293

THE BLAMELESS PRINCE His loss, and past the boundaries; and, since

To ape the pomp to which he was not born

Seemed in his soul a foolish thing and vain,

A few near comrades, only, made his train.

Nor pressed the populace along the ways;

But—for he wished it so—unheralded

He rode from post to post through many days,

Yet gained a greatness as the distance fled,

As some dim comet, drawing near its bound,

Takes lustre from the orb it courses round.

And league by league his fantasies outran

His progress, brooding on his mistress' power,

Until his own estate the while began

To seem of lesser worth each passing hour;

And with misdoubt this fortune weighed him down,

As though a splendid mantle had been thrown

About him, which he knew not well to wear,

And might not forfeit. Yet he spurred apace,

And reached a country-seat that bordered near

The Capital. Here, for a little space,

He was to rest from travel, and await

His day of entrance at the city's gate.

Upon these grounds a gray-haired noble dwelt,

A ribboned courtier of the former reign;

A tedious proper man, who glibly knelt

To royalty,—this ancient chamberlain,—

Yoked with a girlish wife, and, for the rest,

Proud of the charge that made a prince his guest.

The highway ran beside a greenwood keep

That reached, herefrom, quite to the city's edge;

Across, the fields with golden corn were deep;

The level sunset pierced the wayside hedge; 263