  There was a king’s one daughter long ago, In ways of summer, where the swallows go, For whom no prince was found in any land Fair lived and clean to wed so white a hand; Who lying wakeful on a moonless night Saw the dim ways grow tremulous with light, As the sun’s dawning glory, and was aware Of a pale woman standing shrouded there, With hands locked in another’s hands, whose eyes Shone like the starriest wonder of the skies. And the pale woman bending o’er her bed Unveiled the pity in her eyes, and said, “Lo this is he whose blameless days were sweet, If thou could’st love him, and thy love was meet.” And yet he turned those lustrous brows away, And a sad voice seemed evermore to say Across the stillness of a world that slept, “Not mine, not mine,”—so all night through she wept And never heard the singing nightingales. Then awhile after when the cloudy sails Of many a day had winged across the sky, And she had gathered all the mystery From a lone hermit in a desert wood, He came once more in the night-time and stood And set a bridal ring upon her hand To be his lady in his father’s land. So in a little while her rumour grew Till the rough Roman angered—her they slew Being too sweet and wise for that rude time That murdered pity and made love a crime. And the wise men were glad when she was dead, For they had failed of reason—she had said, “When I come up into my kingdom there And my Lord greets me, and I speak him fair, Then will I take him by the hand with me And lead him down, how far so e’er it be, Until we find the old man, Socrates, And the fair souls who followed, for all these Will be together, and I will bid him take Their hands in his and love them for my sake, Because of old they brought me near his side.” It was the time of even when she died; And a fair choir of angels swept along The dying afterglow, before their song The gates were loosed and through the broken bars They bore her skyward under the chill stars, Westward—but once alighting as they flew. In a deep meadow-land, with soft night-dew, They washed the tender wounded throat, and kissed The cords that bound her delicate soft wrist, And at their kiss the fetters fell in twain And the white robe grew faultless of one stain. Then onward, ever onward, all night through, Till lustreless the moon of morning grew In the pale sky where one star lingered yet. Some dark-browed fisher, as he cast his net And woke a ripple on the waveless calm, Looked up and heard the passing angels’ psalm, And through the ripple of the water-rings He saw the gleam of rainbow-tinted wings Drift o’er the glassing bosom of the sea. There where the grave of innocence should be, High up between the rock ridge and the sky, Above the red sea’s summer-tranced wave They laid their burden in a marble grave. And there her beauty fleeteth not, decay Can never steal her loveliness away, But like a carven image evermore Sleeps on now with her still hands folded o’er The saint’s white lily ever blossoming,— All that was earthly of so fair a thing. |
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