And so the days, the sultry summer days,
Went by, and wimpled over with fine haze
The noiseless nights stole after them, as steals
The moon-made shadow at some traveller’s heels. 
And day by day and night by night the Prince
Dwelt in that island of enchantment, since
The hour when Evil Hap, in likeness of
An eagle swooping from the clouds above,
Did bind him body and soul unto that place. 
And in due time the summer waxed apace,
And in due time the summer waned:  and now
The withered leaf had fallen from the bough,
And now the winter came and now the spring;
Yea, summer’s self was toward on the wing
From wandering overseas:  and all this while
The Prince abode in that enchanted isle,
Marvelling much at Fortune and her ways.

And by degrees the slowly-sliding days
Gathered themselves together into years,
And oftentimes his spirit welled in tears
From dawn to darkness and from dark to dawn,
By reason of the light of life withdrawn. 
And if the night brought sleep, a fitful sleep,
The phantoms of a buried time would creep
Out of their hollow hiding-places vast,
Peopling his Present from the wizard Past. 
Sometimes between the whirl of dream and dream,
All in a doubtful middle-world, a gleam
Went shivering past him through the chill grey space,
And lo he knew it for his mother’s face,
And wept; and all the silence where he stood
Wept with him.  And at times the dreamer would
Dream himself back beneath his father’s roof
At eventide, and there would hold aloof
In silence, clothed upon with shadows dim,
To hear if any spake concerning him;
But the hours came and went and went and came,
And no man’s mouth did ever name his name. 
And year by year he saw the queen and king
Wax older, and beheld a shadowy thing
Lurking behind them, till it came between
His dreamsight and the semblance of the queen,
From which time forth he saw her not:  and when
Another year had been it came again,
And after that he saw his sire the king
No more, by reason of the shadowy thing
Stepping between; and all the place became
As darkness, and the echo of a name.

* * * * *

What need to loiter o’er the chronicle
Of days that brought no change?  What boots it tell
The tale of hours whereof each moment was
As like its fellow as one blade of grass
Is to another, when the dew doth fall
Without respect of any amongst them all? 
Enow that time in that enchanted air
Nor slept nor tarried more than otherwhere,
And so at last the captive lived to see
The fiftieth year of his captivity. 
And on a day within that fiftieth year
He wandered down unto the beach, to hear
The breaking of the breakers on the shore,
As he had heard them ofttimes heretofore
In days when he would sit and watch the sea,