The Sonnet, The Lady, And The Prince

A Vignette and Moral
A royal barge once brush'd the meadows
Nigh tall trees by yon river's tide.
Bathed in its leafy lights and shadows
Head-down a linnet dropp'd quick-eyed
In leaves, gold-dipp'd on his green side.
The linnet heard a lady's foot
Who met a princely lover there.
On the deck standing flush'd and mute,
She might have half his gems to wear
For rent of one red rose a year.
Linnet! thou sangest last note of thine
One blue day centuries ago.
The woodlands' various green divine
Hath died, and different branches grow
Over a different river-flow.
The linnet pipes its latest note;
The tree it sang from leafs no more.
There's no plank left of that fair boat,
The river's nearer to the shore-
The king is dead, his line is o'er.
The bird's shy restless heart is still,
The light green wings are woodland clay;
The king's bones moulder at Moville
By that faint-glimmering far-away
Sweep of immeasurable gray.
Wrapt by wild hills both sleep. The cross
Above their graves is lichen'd red,-
The very rain upon the moss
Seems to say more than all they said,
The very shadows there are dead.