Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/306

THE BLAMELESS PRINCE Of strange regret fixed on two pairing doves,

Who find their fate and simple natural loves.

Yet bonds of gold, linked hands, and chancel vows,

Even spousal beds, do not a marriage make.

When such things chain the soul that never knows

Love's mating, little vantage shall it take,

Wandering with alien feet throughout the wide,

Hushed temple, over those who pine outside!

So this young wife forecast her horoscope

And found its wedded lines of little worth,

Yet owned not to herself what hopeless hope

Or dumb intent made green her spot of earth.

So passed three changeless years, as such years be;

At last the old lord died, and left her free,

The mistress of his rank and broad estate,

In honor of her constancy. Then life

Rushed back; she saw her beauty grown more great,

Ripened as if a summer field were rife

With grain, the harvester neglectful, since

Hers was no mean desire that sought a prince,

Eager to make his birth and bloom her own,

Or reign a wanton favorite. But she thought,

Am fairer than he knew me; yet, if aught

Of rarity make sweet my hair and lips,

What sweetness hath the honey that none sips?"

After her time of mourning she grew bold,

And said, "Once let me look upon his face!

The Queen will take no harm if I behold

What all the world can see." She left her place,

And with a kinsman, at a palace rout,

Followed the long line passing in and out

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