“But they who look beneath the outer shell
  That wraps the ‘kernel of the people’s lore,’
Hold THAT for superstition; and they tell
  That seven lovely sisters dwelt of yore
In this old city, where it so befell
  That one a Poet loved; that, furthermore,
As stars above us she was pure and good,
And fairest of that beauteous sisterhood.

“So beautiful they were, those virgins seven,
  That all men called them clustered stars in song,
Forgetful that the stars abide in heaven: 
  But woman bideth not beneath it long;
For O, alas! alas! one fated even
  When stars their azure deeps began to throng,
That virgin’s eyes of Poet loved waxed dim,
And all their lustrous shining waned to him.

“In summer dusk she drooped her head and sighed
  Until what time the evening star went down,
And all the other stars did shining bide
  Clear in the lustre of their old renown. 
And then—­the virgin laid her down and died: 
  Forgot her youth, forgot her beauty’s crown,
Forgot the sisters whom she loved before,
And broke her Poet’s heart for evermore.”

“A mournful tale, in sooth,” the lady saith: 
  “But did he truly grieve for evermore?”
“It may be you forget,” he answereth,
  “That this is but a fable at the core
O’ the other fable.”  “Though it be but breath,”
  She asketh, “was it true?”—­then he, “This lore,
Since it is fable, either way may go;
Then, if it please you, think it might be so.”

“Nay, but,” she saith, “if I had told your tale,
  The virgin should have lived his home to bless,
Or, must she die, I would have made to fail
  His useless love.”  “I tell you not the less,”
He sighs, “because it was of no avail: 
  His heart the Poet would not dispossess
Thereof.  But let us leave the fable now. 
My Poet heard it with an aching brow.”

And he made answer thus:  “I thank thee, youth;
  Strange is thy story to these aged ears,
But I bethink me thou hast told a truth
  Under the guise of fable.  If my tears,
Thou lost beloved star, lost now, forsooth,
  Indeed could bring thee back among thy peers,
So new thou should’st be deemed as newly seen,
For men forget that thou hast ever been.

“There was a morning when I longed for fame,
  There was a noontide when I passed it by,
There is an evening when I think not shame
  Its substance and its being to deny;
For if men bear in mind great deeds, the name
  Of him that wrought them shall they leave to die;
Or if his name they shall have deathless writ,
They change the deeds that first ennobled it.

“O golden letters of this monument! 
  O words to celebrate a loved renown
Lost now or wrested! and to fancies lent,
  Or on a fabled forehead set for crown,
For my departed star, I am content,
  Though legends dim and years her memory drown: 
For nought were fame to her, compared and set
By this great truth which ye make lustrous yet.”