Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/298

THE BLAMELESS PRINCE Only their eyes told what they could not say,

For still their lips spoke alien words that day.

She told a legend of an early king

Who knew the fairy of this wildwood glen,

And often sought her haunt, far off to fling

His grandeur, and be loved like common men.

He died long since, the lady said; but she,

Who could not die, how weary she must be!

They talked of the strange beauty of the spot,

The light that glinted through the ancient trees,

Their own young lives, the Prince's future lot;

Then jested with false laughs. Like tangled bees,

Each other and themselves they sweetly stung;

They sung fond songs, and mocked the words they sung.

At last he hung his picture by a chain

About her neck, and on it graved the date.

Her merry eyes grew soft with tender pain;

She heard him sigh, "Alas, by what rude fate

Our lives, like ships at sea, an instant meet,

Then part forever on their courses fleet!"

And in sheer pity of herself she dropped

Her lovely head; and, though with self she strove,

One hot tear fell. The shadow, which had stopped

On her life's dial, moved again, and Love

Went sobbing by, and only left his wraith;

For both were loyal to their given faith.

Farewells they breathed and self-reproaches found,

Half gliding with the current to the fall,

Yet struggling for the shore. Was she not bound?

Did not his plighted future, like a wall,

Jut 'cross the stream? They feared themselves, and rose,

And through the forest gained the mansion-close

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