Slain was the Prince unwary by the paw
  Of a springing beast that died in giving death. 
Again the featureless torn face he saw,
  The ribboned bosom emptied of warm breath;
Again the circle sudden hush’d with awe,
  And smothered moaning heard the hush beneath. 
Again, again, and every night again,
Vision renewed and voice recalled in vain.

Again those dear and lamentable rites
  Within the winter stems of forest shade,
The pile, the smokeless flame, the thousand lights,
  The one light that in all the thousand played;
Deep burthened voices while, around the heights
  Lifting, young trebles their wild echo made;
Then the returning torches at the pyre
Lit, when the eye glowed faint within the fire.

* * * * *

Even as a man that by slow steps may climb
  An unknown mountain path with tired tread
By ice-fringed brook and close herb white with rime,
  Sees sudden far below a strange land spread
Immense; so from his lonely crag of Time
  The Prince, his eye bewildered and adread,
Gazed at the vast, with mist and storm confused,
Cloud-racked, and changing even while he mused.

Ending were the old wise and stable ways. 
  Adventurers into distant lands had fared,
From distant lands adventurers with gaze
  Proud and unenvying on his kingdom stared,
And sojourning had shaken quiet days
  With restless knowledge, and strange worship reared
Of foreign altars, idols, prayers and songs
And sacrifice as to such gods belongs.

And all unsatisfied his people grown
  Would move from this rejected mountain range
By yearlong valley journeys slowly down,
  Sun-following, till surfeited with change,
Mid idle pastures pitched or fabled town,
  Subdued to climes and kings and customs strange,
At length their very name should die away
And all their remnant be a vague “Men say.”

“Men say!” he sighed, and from that lofty verge
  Of inward seeing drooped his doubtful sight. 
Sweet was it from such reverie to emerge
  And breathe once more the thoughtless air of night,
And watch the fire-slave through fresh billets urge
  The sleeping flame, until the vivid light
And toothed shadows wearied....  And then crept
The hounds a little nearer, and all slept.

* * * * *

But the young man still lay in quiet sleep,
  Or half-sleep, and a dream-born cloud enwreathed
With memories, hopes and longings hidden deep
  In his flown mind.  Another air he breathed,
Saw from an unsubstantial mountain sweep
  In purest light, soon in low shadow sheathed,
Semblance of faint-known faces, or beloved
Daily-acquainted still, or long removed.

Even as sacred fire in fennel stalks
  Through windy ways is borne and densest night,
Till where the outpost shivering sentry walks
  Beating the minutes into hours, the light
Touches the guarded pile and, flaring, balks
  Beasts padding near and each unvisioned sprite
By old dread apprehended; and new gladness
Shakes in the village prone in winter sadness:—­