Page:Von Heidenstam - Sweden's laureate, selected poems of Verner von Heidenstam (1919).djvu/42

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Royal Ring
His shoes devoutly dusted;
"Well, Hafed, where's the ring?"

Amid the joyful troop then
Pale Hafed kneeled forthright
And pressed to earth his forehead,
But now his hair was white.

He drove into his bosom
His long and crooked knife:
"The ring you found mid rubbish
I sought for with my life."

Since then good luck has never
Deceived Umballa's race.
Are diamonds trumps, they ever
Will hold the diamond ace.

That Hafed, too, had offspring
I freely may declare,
Who, young, within my bible
Now lay my first gray hair.

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