The Sonnet, The Lady, And The Prince Poem by William Alexander

A Vignette and Moral


A royal barge once brush'd the meadows
Nigh tall trees by yon river's tide.
Bathed in its leafy lights and shadows
Head-down a linnet dropp'd quick-eyed
In leaves, gold-dipp'd on his green side.
The linnet heard a lady's foot
Who met a princely lover there.
On the deck standing flush'd and mute,
She might have half his gems to wear
For rent of one red rose a year.
Linnet! thou sangest last note of thine
One blue day centuries ago.
The woodlands' various green divine
Hath died, and different branches grow
Over a different river-flow.

The linnet pipes its latest note;
The tree it sang from leafs no more.
There's no plank left of that fair boat,
The river's nearer to the shore—
The king is dead, his line is o'er.
The bird's shy restless heart is still,
The light green wings are woodland clay;
The king's bones moulder at Moville
By that faint-glimmering far-away
Sweep of immeasurable gray.
Wrapt by wild hills both sleep. The cross
Above their graves is lichen'd red,—
The very rain upon the moss
Seems to say more than all they said,
The very shadows there are dead.