Erotica/The Sleeping Beauty

by Arthur Clark Kennedy

The Sleeping Beauty

She slept whilst chains of servitude
Were round her rivetted,
Her palace walls were hung about
With cere-cloths of the dead,
The rank weeds sprang within her courts,
Wild briars fenced her gate;
For seven long years the spell had worked—
Comes then the Prince too late?

Lo! from her fair limbs fall the chains,
The rank weeds fade away;
Her Prince awakes her with a kiss
And knowledge brings the day.