Explore "The Vain King (Legends)" by Henry Van Dyke on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
In robes of Tyrian blue the King was drest, / A jewelled collar shone upon his breast, / A giant ruby glittered in his crown: / Lord of rich lands and many a splendid town, / In him the glories of an ancient line / Of sober kings, who ruled by right divine, / Were centred; and to him with loyal awe / The people looked for leadership and law.
Ten thousand knights, the safeguard of the land, / Were like a single sword within his hand; / A hundred courts, with power of life and death, / Proclaimed decrees of justice by his breath; / And all the sacred growths that men had known / Of order and of rule upheld his throne.