And yet, most surely, it befel
He tired of this house as well:
Was it too mighty after all?
Or still perhaps too small?
Strangely in all men’s wonderment,
He left it for a tenement
He had all builded in one year:
Now he is dwelling there.
He took full little of his gold;
And of his pleasures manifold
He had but a small heed, they say,
That day he went away:
—O, the new dwelling he hath found
Is but a man’s grave in the ground,
And taketh up but one man’s space
In the burial place.
And now, indeed, that he is dead,
The nations have they no more dread?
Lo, is not this the King they swore
To worship evermore?
Will no one Love of his come near
And kiss him where he lieth there,
And warm his freezing lips again?
—Is this then all his reign?
He must have longed ere this to rise
And be again in all men’s eyes;
For the place where he dwelleth now
Lonely it is I trow:
But, just to stand in his own hall
And feel the warmth there once for all—
O would he not give crowns of gold?
For the place is so cold!
But over him a tomb doth stand,
The costliest in all the land;
And of the glory that he bore
It telleth evermore.—
So these three dwellings he hath had,
And mighty he hath been and glad,
O hath he not been sad as well?
Perhaps—but who can tell?
This is the story of the King:
Was he not great in everything?
PALM FLOWERS.
IN a land of the sun’s blessing,
Where the passion-flower grows,
My heart keeps all worth possessing;
And the way there no man knows.
—Unknown wonder of new beauty!
There my Love lives all for me;
To love me is her whole duty,
Just as I would have it be.
All the perfumes and perfections
Of that clime have met with grace
In her body, and complexions
Of its flowers are on her face.