To a Prince's Princess

What sorer fate shall one win in the world
Than to be lowered from Love's first estimate,
To see her heart grow cold, her brows elate
Questioning, and lips with scorn a little curled;
Then on her cheeks the blushing banners furled
That told of Love's alliance, and — too late —
Th' irrevocable guest-gifts alternate
Into the ebb-tide of oblivion hurled?

Not wittingly, O Sweet Heart, did I seem
Larger than my real self; if it were so.
Only in thy light of splendour did I glow
So splendid as to earn thy dear esteem;
And if the dream is gone and I must go.
Remember that I loved — and did not dream.

Who is your like of all that Grimm portrayed?
Is Lovely Locks a lady of his pen?
Or would you play at Princess Scorn-the-men.
Who, to an hateful goblin's power betrayed,
Was rescued by a Prince's magic blade?
Or may be you are Beauty, as I deemed then
When first you came into my wondering ken.
Beauty, a tennis-playing English maid?

I care not which you be, for all, at last,
Were won to look upon the proper man.
Beauty and Lovely Locks, the unsurpassed.
And the fair Scorner, sick of Caliban:
Aye, loved so much at last that none grew paler
To find their Prince was, may be, but a tailor.

O happy times, when lovers' only need
Was fairy godmother or magic sword.
Or tablecloth that spread a sumptuous board
Whene'er the Prince expressed a wish to feed;
When waiters were invisible and unfee'd,
When ocean was no wider than a ford
To seven-league boots, and mangy scrips could breed
Of gold an unimaginable horde.

What Prince to-day can carve a dragon's shank
And in a flying trunk without a fear
Elope with the dear lady of his heart?
Now at a ledger he must ply his part
And wearily, in some suburban bank,
Weigh Love against a hundred pounds a year.