Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/297

THE BLAMELESS PRINCE How day by day those young hearts fed amain

Upon the food of lovers, till—they loved.

Beneath the mists of duty and degree

A warmth of passion crept deliciously

About the twain; and there, within the gleam

Of those gray languid eyes, his nearing fate

Seemed to the one a far, unquiet dream.

So when the heralds said, "All things await

Your princely coming," the glad summons broke

Upon him like a harsh bell's jangling stroke,

And waked him, and he knew he must be gone

And put that honeyed chalice quite away;

Yet once more met the lady, and alone,

It chanced, within the grounds. The two, that day,

Lured by a falling water's sound, went deep

Beyond the sunlight, in the forest-keep.

Here from a range of wooded uplands leapt

A mountain brook and far-off meadows sought;

Now under firs and tasselled chestnuts crept,

Then on through jagged rocks a passage fought,

Until it clove this shadowy gorge and cool

In one white cataract,—with a dark, broad pool

Beneath, the home of mottled trout. One side

Rose the cliff's hollowed height, and overhung

An open sward across that basin wide.

The liberal sun through slanting larches flung

Rich spots of gold upon the tufted ground,

And the great royal forest gloomed around.

The Prince, divided from the world so far,

Sat with the lady on a fallen tree;

They looked like lovers, yet a prison-bar

Between them had not made the two less free. 267