Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/318

THE BLAMELESS PRINCE Nor halted till, thus masterless and late,

Bleeding and torn, he reached the palace-gate.

Then rose a clamor and the tidings spread,

And servitors and burghers thronged about,

Crying, "The Prince's horse! the Prince is dead!"

Till on the courser's track they sallied out,

And came upon the fallen oak, and found

The Prince sore maimed and senseless on the ground.

Then wattling boughs, they raised him in their hold,

And after that rough litter, and before,

The people went in silence; but there rolled

A fiery vapor from the lights they bore,

Like some red serpent huge along the road.

Even thus they brought him back to his abode.

There the pale Queen fell on him at the porch,

Dabbling her robes in blood, and made ado,

And over all his henchman held a torch,

Until with reverent steps they took him through;

And the doors closed, and midnight from the domes

Was sounded, and the people sought their homes.

But on the morrow, like a dreadful bird,

Flew swift the tidings of this sudden woe,

And reached the Prince's paramour, who heard

Aghast, as one who crieth loud, "The blow

Is fallen! I am the cause!"—as one who saith,

So gat her to the town remorsefully,

White with a mortal tremor and the sin

Which sealed her mouth, and waited what might be,

And watched the doors she dared not pass within.

Alas, poor lady! that lone week of fears

Outlived the length of all her former years.

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