Excerpt from Romance and Revery Bep in a land of heavy-foliaged heights, Clear-cloven of one fair lordly river, stood A palace made for manifold delights And compassed by a noble-towering wood. Here lived (how anciently were hard to tell) A king whom all his people honored well. And years before that time his worshipped wife, A queen Madonna-browed and saintly-eyed, With anguish had surrendered life for life, But momently a mother ere She died; And now within these palace-walls dwelt one, A princess, with long tresses like the sun. Ethereal in her symmetry, and tall, And graceful as a lily when breeze-bent, She moved among her maidens, over all Supreme for dignity and sweetness blent, With neither costly robe nor jewel rare To match the marvels of her eyes and hair. Some influence from her mother's watchful soul Inseparably round the Princess breathed, And seemed, at times, a shadowy aureole Among her glimmering tresses faintly wreathed; And it was told that where She slept by night A Presence watched her, made from misty light! Her countenance no woodland creature saw But straightway, on that instant, it became Obedient to some mysterious law, And followed if she called it, meekly tame; And rose-vines round an oriel in her room Were bright with fadeless fealty Of bloom! Now the good King, her father, having thought How wondrously his child was pure and fair, Desponded that the drift Of fate had brought His throne the blessing of no lineal heir; For in this land whereof he held the throne, NO woman might aspire to reign alone. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.