The King is dead,
but did he ever live?
Maybe once as a fanciful prince, prancing and prating in roguish youth,
heart aglow with life's first love.
But that prince, too, died,
As a mantle of hoary grey was laid upon his shoulders,
cold and stiff like the morning frost,
leaden and heavy like the sarcophagus lid,
from the burden of life he fled;
The King is dead,
but did he ever live?