The Story of the King

This is the story of the King: Was he not great in everything?

He built him dwelling-places three: In one of them his Youth should be; To make it fair for many a feast He conquered the whole East; He brought delight from every land, And gold from many a river’s strand, And all things precious he could find In Perse, or utmost Ind.

There, brazen guarded were the doors; And o’er the many painted floors The captive women came and went; Or, with bright ornament, Sat in the pillared places gay, And feasted with him every day, And fed him with their rosy kiss: O there he had all bliss!

Then afterward, when he did hear There was none like him anywhere, He would behold the sight so sweet Of all men at his feet: And, since he heard that certainly Not like a man was he to die, For all his lust that palace vast It seemed too small at last.

Therefore, another house he made, So wide that it might hold arrayed The thousands peers of his domain And last his godlike reign; And here he was a goodly span, While before him came every man To kneel and worship in his sight: O there he had all might!

And yet, most surely, it befel He tired of this house as well: Was it too mighty after all? Or still perhaps too small? Strangely in all men’s wonderment, He left it for a tenement He had all builded in one year: Now he is dwelling there.

He took full little of his gold; And of his pleasures manifold He had but a small heed, they say, That day he went away: —O, the new dwelling he hath found Is but a man’s grave in the ground, And taketh up but one man’s space In the burial place.

And now, indeed, that he is dead, The nations have they no more dread? Lo, is not this the King they swore To worship evermore? Will no one Love of his come near And kiss him where he lieth there, And warm his freezing lips again? —Is this then all his reign?

He must have longed ere this to rise And be again in all men’s eyes; For the place where he dwelleth now Lonely it is I trow: But, just to stand in his own hall And feel the warmth there once for all— O would he not give crowns of gold? For the place is so cold!

But over him a tomb doth stand, The costliest in all the land; And of the glory that he bore It telleth evermore.— So these three dwellings he hath had, And mighty he hath been and glad, O hath he not been sad as well? Perhaps—but who can tell?

This is the story of the King: Was he not great in everything?