Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/311

THE BLAMELESS PRINCE Waxed green, and fresh-bloomed love renewed again

The joys that light our youth and leave our prime,

And women found him tenderer, and men

A blither, heartier comrade; but, meantime,

What hidden gladness made his visage bright

They could not guess; nor with what craft and sleight

The paramours, in fealty to that Love

Who laughs at locks and walks in hooded guise,

Met here and there, yet made no careless move

Nor bared their strategy to cunning eyes.

And though, a portion of the winter year,

The Queen's own summons brought her rival near

The Prince, among the ladies of her train,

Then, meeting face to face at morn and night,

They were as strangers. If it was a pain

To pass so coldly on, in love's despite,

It was a joy to hear each other's tone,

And keep the life-long secret still their own.

Once having dipped their palms they drank full draught,

And, like the desert-parched, alone at first

Felt the delight of drinking, while they quaffed

As if the waters could not slake their thirst;

That nicer sense unreached, when down we fling,

And view the oasis around the spring.

And, in that first bewilderment, perchance

The Prince's lapse had caught some peering eye,

But that his long repute, and maintenance

Against each test, had put suspicion by.

Now no one watched or doubted him. So long

His inner strength had made his outwork strong,

So long had smoothed his face, 't was light to take,

From what had been his blamelessness, a mask. 281