Click in the field, then press CTRL+C to copy the HTML code
<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=539825" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Princes' Ques -Part the Eighth</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Now as it chanced, the day was almost spent<br>When down the lonely mountain-side he went,<br>The whitehaired man, the Prince that was; and ere<br>He won the silence of the valley where<br>The city's many towers uprose, the gate<br>Was closed against him, for the hour was late.<br>So even as they that have not wherewithal<br>To roof them from the rain if it should fall,<br>Upon the grassy ground this king's son lay,<br>And slept till nigh the coming of the day.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But while as any vagabond he slept<br>Or outcast from the homes of men, there crept<br>Unto him lying in such sorry sort<br>A something fairer than the kingliest court<br>In all the peopled world had witness of-<br>Even the shadow of the throne of Love,<br>That from a height beyond all height did creep<br>Along the pavement of the halls of sleep.<br>O fair and wonderful! that shadow was<br>The golden dream of dreams that came across<br>His youth, full half an hundred years before,<br>And sent him wandering through the world. Once more<br>In a lone boat that sails and oars had none,<br>Midmost a land of summer and the sun<br>Where nothing was that was not fair to see,<br>Adown a gliding river glided he,<br>And saw the city that was built thereby,<br>And saw the chariot of the queen draw nigh,<br>And gazed upon her in the goodly street;<br>Whereat he waked and rose upon his feet,<br>Remembering the Vision of the Seer,<br>And what the spirit spake unto his ear:<br>'When in thy wanderings thou shalt dream once more<br>The fateful dream thou haddest heretofore,<br>That filled thy veins with longing as with wine<br>Till all thy being brimm'd over-by that sign<br>Thou mayest know thyself at last to be<br>Within the borders of his empery<br>Who hath the mystic emerald stone, whose gleam<br>Shall light thee to the country of thy dream.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then rose the heart within his heart and said:<br>'O bitter scornful Fate, in days long dead<br>I asked and thou denied'st mine asking: now<br>The boon can no-wise profit me, and thou<br>Dost mock me with bestowal!' Thereupon<br>He fell to thinking of his youthhood gone,<br>And wept. For now the goal, the longtime-sought,<br>Was even at hand, 'but how shall I,' he thought,<br>'I that am old and sad and hoary-haired,<br>Enter the place for youth and love prepared?<br>For in my veins the wellspring of desire<br>Hath failed, and in mine heart the golden fire<br>Burneth no more for ever. I draw near<br>The night that is about our day, and hear<br>The sighing of the darkness as I go<br>Whose ancient secret there is none doth know.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Ev'n so to his own heart he spake full sad,<br>And many and bitter were the thoughts he had<br>Of days that were and days that were to be.<br>But now the East was big with dawn, and he<br>Drew nigh the city-gates and entered in,<br>Ere yet the place remurmured with the din<br>Of voices and the tread of human feet;<br>And going up the void and silent street,<br>All in the chill gleam of the new-lit air,<br>A Thought found way into his soul, and there<br>Abode and grew, and in brief while became<br>Desire, and quickened to a quenchless flame:<br>And holding converse with himself, he said,<br>'Though in my heart the heart's desire be dead,<br>And can no more these time-stilled pulses move;<br>Though Death were lovelier to these eyes than Love<br>Yet would these eyes behold, or ere I pass,<br>The land that mirror'd lay as in a glass<br>In the deep wells of dream. And her that is<br>The sunlight of that city of all bliss,<br>Her would I fain see once with waking eyes<br>Whom sleep hath rendered unto vision twice.<br>And having seen her beauty I would go<br>My way, even to the river which doth flow<br>From daylight unto darkness and the place<br>Of silence, where the ghosts are face to face.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">So mused the man, and evermore his thought<br>Gave him no peace. Wherefore next morn he sought<br>The palace of the king, but on his way<br>Tarried till nigh the middle of the day<br>In talk with certain of the city-folk;<br>Whereby he learned, if that were true they spoke,<br>How that the king their lord was nigh distract<br>With torture of a strange disease that racked<br>Each day his anguished body more and more,<br>Setting at naught the leeches and their lore.<br>Which having heard he went before the king,<br>Who sat upon his throne, delivering<br>Judgment, his body pierced the while with pain.<br>And taking from his neck the charmèd chain<br>Which he had borne about him ever since<br>That morn miraculous, the unknown Prince<br>Upspake and said, 'O king, I hold within<br>My hand a wonder-working medicine<br>Of power to make thee whole if thou wilt deign<br>So to be healèd;' and he held the chain<br>Aloft, and straightway told unto the king<br>The passing worth and wonder of the thing.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then he that heard stretched forth a hand that shook<br>With sudden fever of half-hope, and took<br>The chain, and turned it over in his hand<br>Until his eyes had left no link unscanned.<br>And on each separate link was character'd<br>A language that no living ear had heard,<br>Occult, of secret import, mystic, strange.<br>Then said the king, 'What would'st thou in exchange<br>For this the magic metal thou dost bring?'<br>And the Prince answered him and said, 'O king,<br>Even the emerald stone which some do call<br>The Emerald of the Virtues Mystical.'<br>And they who thronged the hall of judgment were<br>Astonished at the stranger who could dare<br>Ask such a boon; and some base mouths did curl<br>With sneers, churl whispering to his fellow churl,<br>'Who could have deemed the man so covetous,<br>So void of shame in his great greed?' For thus<br>It shall be ever underneath the sun,<br>Each man believing that high hearts are none<br>Whose own is as the dust he treads on low.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But the king answered saying, 'Be it so.<br>To-night this chain of iron shall be worn<br>About my neck, and on the morrow-morn,<br>If all the pain have left these limbs of mine,<br>The guerdon thou demandest shall be thine.<br>But if this torment still tormenteth me,<br>Thy head and shoulders shall part company,<br>And both be cast uncoffin'd to the worms.<br>Open thy mouth and answer if these terms<br>Content thee.' And aloud the Prince replied,<br>'With these conditions I am satisfied:'<br>Whereafter, rising from his knees, he went<br>Out from before the king, and was content.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Next morning, when the king awoke, I wis<br>No heart was lighter in the land than his;<br>For all the grievous burden of his pains<br>Had fall'n from off his limbs, and in his veins<br>Upleapt the glad new life, and the sick soul<br>Seemed like its body all at once made whole.<br>But hardly was the king uprisen before<br>There knock'd and entered at the chamber-door<br>His chief physician (a right skilful leech,<br>But given to hollow trickeries of speech,<br>And artful ways and wiles) who said, 'O king,<br>Be not deceived, I pray thee. One good thing<br>Comes of another, like from like. The weed<br>Beareth not lilies, neither do apes breed<br>Antelopes. Thou art healed of thy pain<br>Not by the wearing of an iron chain-<br>An iron chain forsooth!'-(hereat he laughed<br>As 'twere a huge rare jest) 'but by the draught<br>Which I prepared for thee with mine own hands<br>From certain precious simples grown in lands<br>It irks me tell how many leagues away:<br>Which medicine thou tookest yesterday.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then said the king, 'O false and jealous man,<br>Who lovest better thine own praises than<br>Thy master's welfare! Little 'tis to such<br>As thou, that I should be made whole; but much<br>That men should go before thee, trumpeting<br>''Behold the man that cured our lord the king.''<br>And he was sore displeased and in no mood<br>To hearken. But the chief physician stood<br>Unmoved amid this hail of kingly scorn,<br>With meek face martyr-like, as who hath borne<br>Much in the name of Truth, and much can bear.<br>And from the mouth of him false words and fair<br>So cunningly flowed that in a little while<br>The royal frown became a royal smile,<br>And the king hearkened to the leech and was<br>Persuaded. So that morn it came to pass<br>That when the Prince appeared before the throne<br>To claim his rightful meed, the emerald stone,<br>The king denied his title to receive<br>The jewel, saying, 'Think'st thou I believe<br>Yon jingling chain hath healed my body? Nay;<br>For whatsoever such as thou may say<br>I am not found so easy to beguile:<br>As for the gem thou wouldest, this good while<br>It hath adorned the crown I wear, nor shall<br>The stone be parted from the coronal.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Scarce had the false king spoken when behold<br>Through the high ceiling's goodly fretted gold<br>A sudden shaft of lightning downward sped<br>And smote the golden crown upon his head,<br>Yea, melted ev'n as wax the golden crown.<br>And from the molten metal there fell down<br>A grassgreen Splendour, and the Emerald Stone<br>Tumbled from step to step before the throne,<br>And lay all moveless at the Prince's feet!<br>And the king sat upon his royal seat<br>A dead king, marble-mute: but no man stirred<br>Or spake: and only silence might be heard.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then he before whose feet the gem did lie<br>Said not a word to any man thereby,<br>But stooped and lifted it from off the floor,<br>And passing outward from the open door<br>Put the mysterious jewel in his breast<br>And went his way, none daring to molest<br>The stranger. For the whisper rose and ran,<br>'Is not the lightning leaguèd with this man?'</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=William+Watson">William Watson</a><div class=q>
<img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share">
<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=539825" data-title="The Princes' Ques -Part the Eighth de William Watson" data-description="Now as it chanced, the day was almost spent
When down the lonely mountain-side he went,
The whitehaired man, the Prince that was; and ere
He won the silence of the valley where
The city's many towers uprose, the gate
Was closed against him, for th..."></div>
</div>
</div>