Flowing with deep dim woods on either hand
Where through the boughs did birds of strange song flit: 
And all beside the bloomy banks of it
The city with its towers and domes far-seen. 
And then he told her how that city’s queen
Did pass before him like a breathing flower,
That he had loved her image from that hour. 
“And sure am I,” upspake the Prince at last,
“That somewhere in this world so wide and vast
Lieth the land mine eyes have inly seen;—­
Perhaps in very truth my spirit hath been
Translated thither, and in very truth
Hath seen the brightness of that city of youth. 
Who knows?—­for I have heard a wise man say
How that in sleep the souls of mortals may,
At certain seasons which the stars decree,
From bondage of the body be set free
To visit farthest countries, and be borne
Back to their fleshly houses ere the morn.”

At this the good queen, greatly marvelling,
Made haste to tell the story to the king;
Who hearing laughed her tale to scorn.  But when
Weeks followed one another, and all men
About his person had begun to say
“What ails our Prince?  He groweth day by day
Less like the Prince we knew ... wan cheeks, and eyes
Hollow for lack of sleep, and secret sighs.... 
Some hidden grief the youth must surely have,”—­
Then like his queen the king himself wox grave;
And thus it chanced one summer eventide,
They sitting in an arbour side by side,
All unawares the Pince passed by that way,
And as he passed, unmark’d of either—­they
Nought heeding but their own discourse—­could hear
Amidst thereof his own name uttered clear,
And straight was ’ware it was the queen who spake,
And spake of him; whereat the king ’gan make
Answer in this wise, somewhat angerly: 
“The youth is crazed, and but one remedy
Know I, to cure such madness—­he shall wed
Some princess; ere another day be sped,
Myself will bid this dreamer go prepare
To take whom I shall choose to wife; some fair
And highborn maiden, worthy to be queen
Hereafter.”—­So the Prince, albeit unseen,
Heard, and his soul rebelled against the thing
His sire had willed; and slowly wandering
About the darkling pleasance—­all amid
A maze of intertangled walks, or hid
In cedarn glooms, or where mysterious bowers
Were heavy with the breath of drowsed flowers—­
Something, he knew not what, within his heart
Rose like a faint-heard voice and said “Depart
From hence and follow where thy dream shall lead.” 
And fain would he have followed it indeed,
But wist not whither it would have him go.