Edward Cracroft Lefroy: His Life and Poems including a Reprint of Echoes from Theocritus: By Wilfred Austin Gill: With a Critical Estimate of the Sonnets by the late John Addington Symonds |
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 | Edward Cracroft Lefroy: His Life and Poems |  |
118
XLVII
THE DYING PRINCE
He was a monarch's son, and yet he lay
Racked by the latest pangs of long disease;
And vainly through the lattice stole the breeze
To cool his fevered forehead, where Decay
Made broad her cruel image day by day;
And vainly fell the shadow-gloom from trees,
At whose far feet the peasant droned at ease,
Rich in the sturdy health of common clay.
He saw the clouds. He saw the smoke that curled
From lowly cots, the leaves that flecked his floor;
The peacock screamed, cocks crew, the fountain purled,
And horses trampled at the castle-door;
These were his tokens from the living world—
The world he might not visit any more.
| Edward Cracroft Lefroy: His Life and Poems | |