Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/315

THE BLAMELESS PRINCE Who ask your scorn, as viler than you deem

Your vilest, and am nothing that I seem!"

With such a cry his conscience riotous

Had thrown, perchance, the burden on it laid,

But love and pity held his voice; and thus

The paramours their constant penance made;

False to themselves, before the world a lie,

Yet each for each had cast the whole world by.

In those transcendent moments, when the fire

Leapt up between them rapturous and bright,

One incompleteness bred a wild desire

To let the rest have token of its light;

So natural seemed their love,—so hapless, too,

They might not make it glorious to view,

And speak their joy. 'T was all as they had come,

They two, in some far wildwood wandering mazed,

Upon a mighty cataract, whose foam

And splendor ere that time had never dazed

Men's eyes, nor any hearing save their own

Could listen to its immemorial moan,

And felt amid their triumph bitter pain

That only for themselves was spread that sight.

Oft, when his comrades sang a tender strain,

And music, talk, and wine outlasted night,

Rose in the Prince's throat this sudden tide,

Yet still the seals were ever on his mouth;

No heart, save one, his joy and dole might share.

Passed on the winter's rain and summer's drouth;

Friends more and more, and lovers true, the pair,

Though life its passion and its youth had spent,

Still kept their faith as seasons came and went.

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