Explore "The King" by Madison Cawein on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
/ A blown white bubble buoyed zenith-ward, / Up from the tremulous East the round moon swung / Mist-murky, and the unsocial stars that thronged, / Hot with the drought, thick down the empty West, / Winked thirstily; no wind to rouse the leaves, / That o'er the glaring road lolled palpitant, / Withered and whitened of the weary dust / From iron hoofs of that gay fellowship / Of knights which gat at morn the king disguised; / Whose mind was, "in the lists to joust and be / An equal mid unequals, man with man: " / Who from the towers of Edric passed, wherein / Some nights he'd sojourned, till one morn a horn / Sang at dim portals, musical with dew, / Wild echoes of wild woodlands and the hunt, / Clear herald of the staunchest of his knights; / And they to the great jousts at Camelot / Rode pounding off, a noise of steel and steeds.
/ Thick in the stagnant moat the lilies lay / Ghastly and rotting; hoarse with rusty chains / The drawbridge hung before the barbed grate; / And far above along lone battlements, / His armor moon-drenched, one great sentinel / Clanked drowsily, and it was late in June, / She at her lattice, lawny night-robed, leaned / Dreaming of somewhat dear, and happy smiled / From glorious eyes; a face like gracious nights, / One silent brilliancy of steadfast stars / Innumerable and delicate through the dusk: / Long, loosened loops and coils of sensuous hair / Rolled turbulence down naked neck and throat, / That shamed the moonshine with a rival sheen.