THE BLAMELESS PRINCE
From passion and from pain enfranchised quite,
Alike from gain and never-stanched Regret,
Calm as the blind who have not seen the light,
The dumb who hear no precious voice; and yet
The sun forever pours his lambent fire
And the high winds are vocal with desire.
And there are those whose fervent souls are wed
To glorious bodies, panoplied for love,
Born to hear sweetest words that can be said,
To give and gather kisses, and to move
All men with longing after them,—to know
What flowers of paradise for lovers grow.
The Vestal, with her silvery content,
The Lesbian, with the passion and the pain,—
Which creature hath their one Creator lent
More light of heaven? Who would dare restrain
The beams of either? who the radiance mar
Of the white planet or the burning star?
If in its innocence a life is bound
With cords that thrall its birthright and design,
Let those whose hands the evil meshes wound
Pray that it cast no look beyond their line;
That no strong voice too late may enter in
Its prison-range, to teach what might have been.
Was there no conscious spirit thus to plead
For this bright lady, as the wondering guest
Closed with his welcomers, and each took heed
Of each, and horse to horse they rode abreast,
Nearing a fair and spacious house that stood,
Half hidden, in the edges of the wood?
And while, the last court-tidings running o'er,
Their talk on this and that at random fell,
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