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?"
"Queen! I speak truth,—the truth, I say! He fed
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,—
"If this be not thy frenzy,—quick, the proof,
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
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