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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=539830" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Princes' Quest - Part the Seventh</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=539830" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">But Sleep, who makes a mist about the sense,<br>Doth ope the eyelids of the soul, and thence<br>Lifteth a heavier cloud than that whereby<br>He veils the vision of the fleshly eye.<br>And not alone by dreams doth Sleep make known<br>The sealèd things and covert-not alone<br>In <br>visions<br>of the night do mortals hear<br>The fatal feet and whispering wings draw near;<br>But dimly and in darkness doth the soul<br>Drink of the streams of slumber as they roll,<br>And win fine secrets from their waters deep:<br>Yea, of a truth, the spirit doth grow in sleep.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=539830" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Howbeit I know not whether as he slept<br>A voice from out the depth of dream upleapt<br>And whispered in his ear; or whether he<br>Grew to the knowledge blindly, as a tree<br>Waxes from bloom to fruitage, knowing not<br>The manner of its growth: but this I wot,<br>That rising from that sleep beside the spring<br>The Prince had knowledge of a certain thing<br>Whereof he had not wist until that hour-<br>To wit, that two contending spirits had power<br>Over <br>his<br>spirit, ruling him with sway<br>Altern; as 'twere dominion now of Day<br>And now of Dark; for one was of the light,<br>And one was of the blackness of the night.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=539830" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Now there be certain evil spirits whom<br>The mother of the darkness in her womb<br>Conceived ere darkness' self; and one of these<br>Did rule that island of the middle seas<br>Hemmed round with silence and enchantment dim.<br>Nothing in all the world so pleasured him<br>As filling human hearts with dolorousness<br>And banning where another sprite did bless;<br>But chiefly did his malice take delight<br>In thwarting lovers' hopes and breathing blight<br>Into the blossoms newly-openèd<br>Of sweet desire, till all of sweet were fled:<br>And (for he knew what secret hopes did fill<br>The minds of men) 'twas even now his will<br>To step between the Prince and his desire,<br>Nor suffer him to fare one furlong nigher<br>Unto that distant-shining golden goal<br>That beacon'd through the darkness to his soul.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=539830" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">And so the days, the sultry summer days,<br>Went by, and wimpled over with fine haze<br>The noiseless nights stole after them, as steals<br>The moon-made shadow at some traveller's heels.<br>And day by day and night by night the Prince<br>Dwelt in that island of enchantment, since<br>The hour when Evil Hap, in likeness of<br>An eagle swooping from the clouds above,<br>Did bind him body and soul unto that place.<br>And in due time the summer waxed apace,<br>And in due time the summer waned: and now<br>The withered leaf had fallen from the bough,<br>And now the winter came and now the spring;<br>Yea, summer's self was toward on the wing<br>From wandering overseas: and all this while<br>The Prince abode in that enchanted isle,<br>Marvelling much at Fortune and her ways.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=539830" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">And by degrees the slowly-sliding days<br>Gathered themselves together into years,<br>And oftentimes his spirit welled in tears<br>From dawn to darkness and from dark to dawn,<br>By reason of the light of life withdrawn.<br>And if the night brought sleep, a fitful sleep,<br>The phantoms of a buried time would creep<br>Out of their hollow hiding-places vast,<br>Peopling his Present from the wizard Past.<br>Sometimes between the whirl of dream and dream,<br>All in a doubtful middle-world, a gleam<br>Went shivering past him through the chill grey space,<br>And lo he knew it for his mother's face,<br>And wept; and all the silence where he stood<br>Wept with him. And at times the dreamer would<br>Dream himself back beneath his father's roof<br>At eventide, and there would hold aloof<br>In silence, clothed upon with shadows dim,<br>To hear if any spake concerning him;<br>But the hours came and went and went and came,<br>And no man's mouth did ever name his name.<br>And year by year he saw the queen and king<br>Wax older, and beheld a shadowy thing<br>Lurking behind them, till it came between<br>His dreamsight and the semblance of the queen,<br>From which time forth he saw her not: and when<br>Another year had been it came again,<br>And after that he saw his sire the king<br>No more, by reason of the shadowy thing<br>Stepping between; and all the place became<br>As darkness, and the echo of a name.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=539830" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"></a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=539830" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"></a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=539830" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">*</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=539830" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">What need to loiter o'er the chronicle<br>Of days that brought no change? What boots it tell<br>The tale of hours whereof each moment was<br>As like its fellow as one blade of grass<br>Is to another, when the dew doth fall<br>Without respect of any amongst them all?<br>Enow that time in that enchanted air<br>Nor slept nor tarried more than otherwhere,<br>And so at last the captive lived to see<br>The fiftieth year of his captivity.<br>And on a day within that fiftieth year<br>He wandered down unto the beach, to hear<br>The breaking of the breakers on the shore,<br>As he had heard them ofttimes heretofore<br>In days when he would sit and watch the sea,<br>If peradventure there some ship might be.<br>But now his soul no longer yearned as then<br>To win her way back to the world of men:<br>For what could now his freedom profit him?<br>The hope that filled youth's beaker to its brim<br>The tremulous hand of age had long outspilled,<br>And whence might now the vessel be refilled?<br>Moreover, after length of days and years<br>The soul had ceased to beat her barriers,<br>And like a freeborn bird that cagèd sings<br>Had grown at last forgetful of her wings.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=539830" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">And so he took his way toward the sea-<br>Not, as in former days, if haply he<br>Might spy some ship upon the nether blue,<br>And beckon with his hands unto the crew,<br>But rather with an easeful heart to hear<br>What things the waves might whisper to his ear<br>Of counsel wise and comfortable speech.<br>But while he walked about the yellow beach,<br>There came upon his limbs an heaviness,<br>For languor of the sultry time's excess;<br>And so he lay him down under a tree<br>Hard by a little cove, and there the sea<br>Sang him to sleep. And sleeping thus, he dreamed<br>A dream of very wonderment: himseemed,<br>The spirit that half an hundred years before<br>In likeness of an eagle came and bore<br>His body to that island on a day,<br>Came yet again and found him where he lay,<br>And taking him betwixt his talons flew<br>O'er seas and far-off countries, till they drew<br>Nigh to a city that was built between<br>Four mountains in a pleasant land and green;<br>And there upon the highest mountain's top<br>The bird that was no bird at all let drop<br>Its burthen, and was seen of him no more.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=539830" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Thereat he waked, and issuing from the door<br>Of dream did marvel in his heart; because<br>He found he had but dreamed the thing that was:<br>For there, assuredly, was neither sea<br>Nor Isle Enchanted; and assuredly<br>He sat upon the peak of a great hill;<br>And far below him, looking strangely still,<br>Uptowered a city exceeding fair to ken,<br>And murmurous with multitude of men.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><a href="http://poems.citatepedia.com/">poem</a> by <strong><a rel="author" href="http://authors.citatepedia.com/by.php?a=William+Watson">William Watson</a></strong></div>