Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/119



that knight of fairy lore

Who rode so boldly into the world,

To see the maiden whose beauty

Like a rose on its bush is unfurled.

And they said that who so beheld her

With an endless curse was opprest,

Either changed to a stony statue

Or his heart torn out of his breast.

But I thought in my pride and madness

Some haply escape sometimes,

Forth rode I, and, for my presumtion,

Am changed to a rhymer of rhymes.