Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/330

THE BLAMELESS PRINCE Thus read the Queen: till now, her injured soul

Of its forlornness had not felt the whole.

Now all her heart was broken. There she fell,

And to the skies her lofty spirit fled.

The wrong of those mute words had smitten well.

A cry went up: "The Queen! the Queen is dead!

O regal heart that would not reign alone!

O fatal sorrow! O the empty throne!"

Her people made her beauteous relics room

Within the chamber where her consort slept.

There rest they side by side. Around the tomb

A thousand matrons solemn vigil kept.

Long ages told the story of her reign,

And sang the nuptial love that hath no stain.

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