All in the woodland green, sombrely dight, wandered a king and queen at the fall of night. She has the chain, and he bears the lamb of gold -- "Take back the chain," said she, "All our love is cold." "You loved me, queen. Can I cancel love's pain? Then take this lamb of gold, and the chain retain." "Let us be still, be still, where moonlight blanches. Farewell requites farewell 'neath sighing branches." One shade to the chateau, lonely, returns. One shade, with gold aglow, flees through the ferns. What, that has not been said, what shall I say of loves so quickly dead 'mid nights of May? Say that the heaven's seem ne'er to agree with life's eternal dream, love's fantasy? O'er the dead loves we mourn gold skies are bending. Splendid criterion of loves unending! Love, 'tis a chilling rain falls on us soon. Suffer, above our pain bright shines the moon. Here the lament dies, dies of melancholy. -- "A king and queen once loved, loved with tender folly." Ah, passion's brittleness! Weary refrain! -- "Alas, the littleness of our loves mundane. . . ." | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...CALIFORNIA CITY LANDSCAPE by CARL SANDBURG A COLONIAL MORNING DREAM by KAREN SWENSON ADAM AND HIS FATHER by KAREN SWENSON DEAR ELIZABETH: (FOR ELIZABETH DIFIORE) by KAREN SWENSON |