Читать книгу Lays and Legends of the English Lake Country - John Pagen White - Страница 15

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King Eveling stood by the Azure River,

When the tide-wave landward began to flow;

And over the sea in the sunlight's shiver,

He watch'd one white sail northward go.

"Twice has it pass'd; and I linger, weary:

How I long for its coming, my life to close!

My lands forget me, my halls are dreary,

And my age is lonely; I want repose.

"If rightly I read the signs within me,

The tides may lessen, the moon may wane,

And then the Powers I have serv'd will win me

A pathway over yon shining plain.

"It befits a King, who has wisely spoken,

Whose rule was just, and whose deeds were brave,

To depart alone, and to leave no token

On earth but of glory—not even a grave.

"And now I am going. No more to know me,

My banners fall round me with age outworn.

I have buried my crown in the sands below me;

And I vanish, a King, into night forlorn.

"What of mine is good will endure for ever,

Growing into the ages on earth to be,

When—Eveling dwelt by the Azure River,

A King—shall be all that is told of me."

For days the tides with ebbing and flowing

Grew full with the moon; and out of the dim,

On the ocean's verge came the white sail growing,

And anchor'd below on the shoreward rim.

His people slept. For to them descended,

In that good time of the King, their rest,

While the lengthening shades of the eve yet blended

With the golden sunbeams low in the west.

No banded host on his footsteps waited,

No child nor vassal from bower or hall:

He look'd around him like one belated

On a lonely wild; and he went from all.

Slowly he strode to the ship; and for ever

Sailed out from the land he had ruled so well;

And the name of the King by the Azure River

Is all that is left for the bards to tell.