Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1904-07-06
Hedged in BY Royalty.
was q kino. even in nv cradle.

I was a king, even in my cradle.
| had been born | had to die. These
were the only two things they said |
could share with my people.
N:aiesty! 1t hemmed me in on every
side The reverence of it filled the lula
bies that were sung in my baby ears. At
every turn | was implored to remember
it. 1t made me thing apart.
For twenty years | was stranger to
everything that means life!
And then | awoke in spite of them
in spite of my kingship
awoke! My God, the awaken
ing! A ray of sunlight crept into my
poor, starved, ignorant soul. s
The king was a thing apart no longer.
| was i'll, SO i'll that they grew fright
ened and sent me into the apple gardens
of Brittany TO recover. And L met her
there! She was not princess OF the
blood; not lady of quality She was
just little GIRL with a wealth of love
in her eyes, and a golden youthfulness
that bewildered me, and that made the
Garden of Eden real to me. For one
brief summer | was allowed my birth
right, and dreamed my dream, as other
men. [ heard whispered words of love,
amazing love, bewildered love =
[ kissed the eyes that never knew my
royalty and never guessed the gulf be-
tween us. The mummy had been torn
from its wrappings, and the man
breathed Gods air, and realized Gods
earth!
She was all the world to me. all tits
and the next, and my kingship was
obliterated. [ flung custom to the winds
Of heaven. She made me realize that
love can burst the hearts of empires and
level majesty in the dust. | loved her
Fer fash of time / was left in peace,
alone with love. Memory was
dead vampire.
Then they came for me.
cried for mercy; but the vampire was
alive and | had lost my dream. | re-
turned to captivity, a helpless fugitive
from fate.
In time, they told me that I had set
tied down again with wonderful ease.
Eut | knew better. The man in me, tho
awakened man in me, refused t. be
smothered out of existence again and
made the court purgatory.
All day, all night | thirsted for her
Love was all-powerful. | could not beat
it out of my aching heart. | starved it,
bat 1t thrlyed apace. l tried to murder
It, Tut it sprang to life again and agar,
AID stronger each time.
And at last it drove me back to her.
| saw her again. She had
changed. She prayed to me to
Justify her and l had to tell
her that l was king
She stared at me like a dying wom-
an. Later | heard the awful thing the
villagers whispered about her $
and the name they called it by. +
She came to me again, before they parted
Us forever. She was i'll, and the gold
had gone from her hair. But mystic
love remained like fairy wreath about
her. She kept staring at me, imploring
ne to be impossible, with an agony Of
longing for the king to abdicate and the
man to live in her eyes But the king
was devil and as hard as stone The
man was a pitiful coward and cried for
brutal force and urged that q whole
empire blocked the way She
was unable to realize the barrier, the i'm
nense barrier!
| was dragged back to my kingdom to
P-f'a hHC hIllS dSdlll IniS TINE IL WAS
forever, though the old longing. the same
love, swept into my empty soul and
fought for mastery as it had done before.
But the king, God bless him! con-
quered again and again. And the man,
God pity him! was heap of despair and
love, like broken bauble-was phan-
tom that was half sweet, all bitter to
remember. And | = [ have
nothing left of that summer =
nothing but the memory of her eyes baz-
ing with hope, dulling with despair, black
things wrapped hollowly in mists of
paleness, leading me away from life and
majesty and duty, drawing me step by
step into those fathomless deeps the
world calls graves, where men lie and
worms eat them; where | must lie when
at last the man conquers the king and
death Ill his turn takes the conqueror
captive.
An! then toi!-Muriel A.
Pollexfen in London Free Lance.