Poems (Piatt)/Volume 2/The Old King's Atonement

by Sarah Piatt

THE OLD KING'S ATONEMENT. TOLD TO A BOY ON CHRISTMAS EVE.

This is the story that a dead man writ—
 Five hundred years ago it must be, quite;
Worlds full of children listened once to it,
 Who do not ask for stories now at night.

Worlds full of children, who have followed him,
 The King they learned to love and to forgive,
About whose feet the North-snows once lay dim,
 To the sweet land where he has gone to live.

He was a boy whose purple cap could show
 As true a peacock's-plume as ever fanned
Bright royal hair, but in the gracious glow
 Of his fair head strange things, it seems, were planned:

"To be a prince is well enough," thought he,
 "But then would it not be a braver thing
To be—my father, only young! To be,"
 He whispered, oh, so low—"to be the King!—

"My father, who may live for years and years.
 And I meanwhile?—Prince Henry to the last!
Sin, by God's grace, may be washed out with tears,
 And some day I'll have time to pray and fast."

He blew a blast that wailed from field to field;
 Then, with his sword's point hurled his father down,
And bared his own dark forehead, and revealed
 Thereon the sudden lightning of the crown.

But soon that fire of jewels round his head
 Burned to his heart. He sat forlorn with grief:
"We'll send across the mountains there," he said,
 "To our great Priest in Italy for relief."

His Holiness sat thinking in his town
 Of Rome five minutes, or, it may be, more;
His scarlet Cardinals pulled their brave hats down,
 And thought as Cardinals never thought before.

"Tell him," the reverend Father said, "to build
 Strong churches, and give freely of his gold
To our poor brothers." So his realm was filled
 With monks and abbeys. But—shall truth be told?—

His father's shadow would not let him be,—
 Till, one fine night, out of the pleasant skies,
Mary looked down, remembering that he
 Was once a child, with sweet half-human eyes:

"He shall be glad again, for he shall make
 The little ones glad in memory of my Son,"
She said. Her aureole flashed the King awake;
 He thought, "Let my Lord's Mother's will be done."

So from his head the cruel crown he shook,
 And from his breast the ermine cloak he tore,
And, wrapped in serge, his lonesome way he took
 In the weird night from dreaming door to door.

A very Saint of Christmas in the moon,
 Followed by glimmering evergreens and toys,
The old King looked. And did they wake too soon,
 Those blonde-haired, blue-eyed, far-back girls and boys?

I only know that still the peasants say,
 In his far country, that a strange King walks
All night before the Lord Christ's glad birthday,
 And leaves no track—a King who never talks!

And sometimes children, stealing from their bed,
 To look if the slow morning yet be near,
Have seen his sweeping beard and hooded head,
 And grey, still smile, with never any fear.

They know the dawn will light the loveliest things,
 Left in the silence by their silent friend.
They know the strange King is the best of kings,
 And mean to love him till the world shall end.