Eleanor Farjeon

The Old Grey Queen

The Princess looked from the old grey tower;
She was a-weary of being there.
She wore no crown but her own gold hair,
And the old grey Queen had shut her there,
    She was so like a flower.

"The young King's-Son comes over the sea
From the West," said the Queen who was grey and old.
"In an unlit hall were not grey as gold?
In an unlit hall what are young and old?
    We'll greet i' the dark," said she.

The Princess looked from the old grey tower ...
Lo! a milk-white sail on the sunlit ocean.
Fluttered her heart to its fluttering motion,
And the King's-Son looked from the golden ocean ...
    She was so like a flower.

"Why do the grey seas break and boom?
And why is the starless dusk so grey?
And why does the young King's-Son delay?
Shall I," said the Queen who was old and grey,
    "Sit all night i' the gloom?"

The grey seas broke on an empty tower
Like pain that knocks on an empty breast.
Lo! a milk-white sail that flew the crest
Of Love and of Youth met breast to breast
Melted away in the golden West....

The old grey Queen beat her empty breast:
    "She was so like a flower."