A gallant train to meet this loving pair, In silk and steel, moves from the castle door, And up the broad and ringing castle stair They go with gleeful minstrelsy before, And "Hail our prince and princess evermore!" From all the happy throng is greeting there. XXXVI. And in the hall the prince's sire, King Cole, Sitting with crown and royal ermine on, His fiddlers three behind with pipe and bowl, Rises and moves to lift his kneeling son, Greeting his bride with kisses many a one, And tears and laughter from his jolly soul; XXXVII. Then both his children to a window leads That over daisied pasture-land looks out, And shows Bopeep where her lost flock wide feeds, And every frolic lambkin leaps about. She hears Boy-Blue, that lazy shepherd, shout, Slow pausing from his pipe of mellow reeds; XXXVIII. And, turning, peers into her prince's eyes; Then, caught and clasped against her prince's heart, Upon her breath her answer wordless dies, And leaves her gratitude to sweeter art,-- To lips from which the bloom shall never part, To looks wherein the summer never dies! WHILE SHE SANG. I. She sang, and I heard the singing, Far out of the wretched past, Of meadow-larks in the meadow, In a breathing of the blast. Cold through the clouds of sunset The thin red sunlight shone, Staining the gloom of the woodland Where I walked and dreamed alone; And glinting with chilly splendor The meadow under the hill, Where the lingering larks were lurking In the sere grass hid and still. Out they burst with their singing, Their singing so loud and gay; They made in the heart of October A sudden ghastly May, That faded and ceased with their singing. The thin red sunlight paled, And through the boughs above me The wind of evening wailed;-- Wailed, and the light of evening Out of the heaven died; And from the marsh by the river The lonesome killdee cried. II. The song is done, but a phantom Of music haunts the chords, That thrill with its subtile presence, And grieve for the dying words. And in the years that are perished, Far back in the wretched past, I see on the May-green meadows The white snow falling fast;-- Falling, and falling, and falling, As still and cold as death, On the bloom of the odorous orchard, On the small, meek flowers beneath; On the roofs of the village-houses, On the long, silent street, Where its plumes are soiled and broken Under the passing feet; On the green crest of the woodland, On the cornfields far apart; On the cowering birds in the gable, And on my desolate heart. A POET. From wells where Truth in secret lay He saw the midnight stars by day. "O marvellous gift!" the many cried, "O cruel gift!" his voice replied. The stars were far, and cold, and high, That glimmered in the noonday sky;