A Print Shop Incident - A poem by William Allen White

The Maiden And The Prince.

THERE'S a half-forgotten story or the echo of a
song,
That is tangled in the meshes of my mem'ry, and
a throng
Of knights in jeweled armor pass in dignified
parade,
Across my fitful fancy, while, upon a palisade,
A wraith of regal radiance, illumes the legend
fair:
Of the maid behind the trellis and the prince
who kissed her hair.

There's a glitter and a glamour in the telling of
the tale,
And a golden thread of love is wrapt around the
rugged mail,
Till its silky strands seem stronger than the woof
of love we know,
As it shimmers in the sunshine on the hills of
long ago.
And so lovers of these latter days look back with
mute dispair
At the maid behind the trellis and the prince
who kissed her hair.

Yet the lily lady's lover was a roisterer who
fought
Many brutal bloody battles for the booty that
they brought;
And his heart benumbed and callous, seared with
passion could not feel
The perfumed breath of Love through Hope's
enchanted chambers steal.
'Twas the halo of some poet's love that lit the
fabled pair:
The maid behind the trellis, and the prince who
kissed her hair.

^__William Allen White.