Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Beneath the fiery cope of middle day
The youthful Prince, his train left all behind,
With eager eye gazed round him every way,
If springing well he anywhere might find.

His favourite falcon, from long aëry flight
Returning, and from quarry struck at last,
Told of the chase, which with its keen delight
Had thus allured him on so far and fast,—

Till gladly he had welcomed in his drought
The dullest pool that gathered in the rain:
But such, or fount of clearer lymph, he sought
Long through that blasted barren waste in vain.

What pleasure when, slow stealing o'er a rock,
He spied the glittering of a little rill,
Which yet, as if his burning thirst to mock,
Did its scant treasures drop by drop distil.

A golden goblet from his saddle-bow
He loosed, and from his steed alighted down,
To wait until that fountain, trickling slow,
Should in the end his golden goblet crown.

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When set beside the promise of that draught
How poor had seemed to him the costliest wine,
That with its beaded bubbles winked and laughed,—
When set beside that nectar more divine.

The brimming vessel to his lips at last
He raised,—when, lo! the falcon on his hand,
With beak and pinion's sudden impulse, cast
That cup's rare treasure all upon the sand.

Long was it ere the fountain, pulsing slow,
Caused once again that chalice to run o'er;
When thinking no like hindrance now to know,
He raised it to his parchëd lips once more:

Once more, as if to cross his purpose bent,
The watchful bird,—as if on this one thing,
That drink he should not of that stream, intent,—
Struck from his hand the cup with forceful wing.

But when this new defeat his purpose found,
Swift penalty this time the bird must pay;
Hurled down with angry strength upon the ground,
Before her master's feet in death she lay:

And he, twice baffled, did meanwhile again
From that scant rill to slake his thirst prepare;
When, down the crags descending, of his train
One cried, ‘O monarch, for thy life forbear!

‘Coiled in these waters at their fountain head,
And causing them so feebly to distil,
A poisonous snake of hugest growth lies dead,
And doth with venom all the streamlet fill.’

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Dropped from his hand the cup;—one look he cast
Upon the faithful creature at his feet;
Whose dying struggles now were almost past,
For whom a better guerdon had been meet;

Then homeward rode in silence many a mile:—
But if such thoughts did in his bosom grow,
As did in mine the painfulness beguile
Of that his falcon's end, what man can know?

I said—‘Such chalices the world fills up
For us, and bright and without bale they seem—
A sparkling potion in a jewelled cup,
Nor know we drawn from what infected stream.

‘Our spirit's thirst they promise to assuage,
And we those cups unto our death had quaffed,
If Heaven did not in dearest love engage
To dash the chalice down, and mar the draught.

‘Alas for us, if we that love are fain
With wrath and blind impatience to repay,
Which nothing but our weakness doth restrain,—
As he repaid his faithful bird that day;

‘If an indignant glance we lift above,
To lose some sparkling goblet discontent,
Which, but for that keen watchfulness of love,
Swift circling poison through our veins had sent.’