Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/308

THE BLAMELESS PRINCE Youth passes like a bird; but love alone

Makes wealth of riches, power of rank, men's praise

A goodly sound. Of such things have I aught?

There is a foil to make their substance naught.

Yet lacked the gift of love? or what the fame

Of some dwarfed poet, whose numbers still we sing,

If no fair woman trembled where he came?

The beggar dying in ditch is not accurst

If love once crowned him! Fate may do her worst.

And filled its birth-cup to the jewelled brim,

And, while it sparkled, held it high above,

And drained it slowly, swiftly,—then, though dim

Grow the blurred eyes, and comfort and desire

Are but the ashes of their ancient fire,

Remembering the past, nor grudge, with hoar

And ravenous look, the youth we have not spent.

No earthly sting has power to harm it more;

It lived and loved, was young, and now is old,

And life is rounded like a ring of gold."

Thereat with sudden rein the Prince wheeled horse,

And sought a pathway that he long had known

Yet shunned till now. Beside a watercourse

It led him for a winding league and lone;

Then made a rugged circuit,—where the brook

Down a steep ledge of rock its plunges took,—

And ended at an open sward, the same

Against whose edge the leaping cataract fell

From those high cliffs. Five years ago he came

To bury youth and love within that dell, 278