Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/324

THE BLAMELESS PRINCE In mortals, though perchance it never wakes

From its mute sleep—began to rouse and crawl.

Her lips grew white, and on her nostrils flakes

Of wrath and loathing stood. "What, now, is all

This wicked drivel?" she cried;" how dare they bring

The Queen to listen to so foul a thing?"

Upon these lips,—this hair he loved to praise!

I held within these arms his bright fair head

Pressed close, ah, close!—Our lifetimes were the days

We met,—the rest a void!"—"Thou spectral Sin,

Be silent! or, if such a thing hath been,—

Before I score the lie thy lips amid!"

She spoke so dread the other crouched aloof,

Panting, but with gaunt hands somewhere undid

A knot within her hair, and thence she took

The signet-ring and passed it. The Queen's look

Fell on it, and that moment the strong stay,

Which held her from the instinct of her wrong,

Broke, and therewith the whole device gave way,

The grand ideal she had watched so long;

As if a tower should fall, and on the plain

Only a scathed and broken pile remain.

But in its stead she would not measure yet

The counter-chance, nor deem this sole attaint

Made the Prince less than one in whom 't was set

To prove him man. "I held him as a saint,"

She thought, "no other:—of all men alone

My blameless one! Too high my faith had flown:

"So be it!" With a sudden bitter scorn

She said: "You were his plaything, then! the food 294