Drums throbbed, and endless lines of soldiers

Filed past in scarlet coats.

And the fairies were there the king had bidden,

Bearing their gifts of good—

But right in the midst a strange old woman

Surly and scowling stood.

They knew her to be the old, old fairy,

All nose and eyes and ears,

Who had not peeped, till now, from her dungeon

For more than fifty years.

Angry she was to have been forgotten

Where others were guests, and to find

That neither a seat nor a dish at the banquet

To her had been assigned.

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Now came the hour for the gift-bestowing;

And the fairy first in place

Touched with her wand the child and gave her

“Beauty of form and face!”

Fairy the second bade, “Be witty!”

The third said, “Never fail!”

The fourth, “Dance well!” and the fifth, “O Princess,

Sing like the nightingale!”

The sixth gave, “Joy in the heart forever!”

But before the seventh could speak,

The crooked, black old Dame came forward,

And, tapping the baby’s cheek,

“You shall prick your finger upon a spindle,

And die of it!” she cried.

All trembling were the lords and ladies,

And the king and queen beside.

But the seventh fairy interrupted,

“Do not tremble nor weep!

That cruel curse I can change and soften,

And instead of death give sleep!

“But the sleep, though I do my best and kindest,

Must last for an hundred years!”

On the king’s stern face was a dreadful pallor,

In the eyes of the queen were tears.

“Yet after the hundred years are vanished,”—

The fairy added beside,—

“A Prince of a noble line shall find her,

And take her for his bride.”

But the king, with a hope to change the future,

Proclaimed this law to be:

That, if in all the land there was kept one spindle,

Sure death was the penalty.

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And Goody shrieking, the frightened courtiers

Climbed up the old worn stair

Only to find, in heavy slumber,

The Princess lying there.

They bore her down to a lofty chamber,

They robed her in her best,

And on a couch of gold and purple

They laid her for her rest,

The roses upon her cheek still blooming,

And the red still on her lips,

While the lids of her eyes, like night-shut lilies,

Were closed in white eclipse.

Then the fairy who strove her fate to alter

From the dismal doom of death,

Now that the vital hour impended,

Came hurrying in a breath.

And then about the slumbering palace

The fairy made up-spring

A wood so heavy and dense that never

Could enter a living thing.

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And there for a century the Princess Lay in a trance so deep That neither the roar of winds nor thunder Could rouse her from her sleep. Then at last one day, past the long-enchanted Old wood, rode a new king’s son, Who, catching a glimpse of a royal turret Above the forest dun Felt in his heart a strange wish for exploring The thorny and briery place, And, lo, a path through the deepest thicket Opened before his face! On, on he went, till he spied a terrace, And further a sleeping guard, And rows of soldiers upon their carbines Leaning, and snoring hard. Up the broad steps! The doors swung backward! The wide halls heard no tread! But a lofty chamber, opening, showed him A gold and purple bed.