"The crowning dainties yet behind?
"Ponder on the entire past
"Laid together thus at last,
"When the twilight helps to fuse
"The first fresh with the faded hues,
"And the outline of the whole,
"As round eve's shades their framework roll, "Grandly fronts for once thy soul ! "And then as, 'mid the dark, a gleam "Of yet another morning breaks, "And like the hand which ends a dream, "Death, with the might of his sunbeam, "Touches the flesh and the soul awakes, "Then-"
Ay, then indeed something would happen! But what? For here her voice changed like a bird's ; There grew more of the music and less of the words. Had Jacynth only been by me to clap pen
To paper and put you down every syllable With those clever clerkly fingers,
All I've forgotten as well as what lingers
In this old brain of mine that 's but ill able
To give you even the poorest version
Of the speech I spoil, as it were, with stammering! -More fault of those who had the hammering
Of prosody into me and syntax,
And did it, not with hobnails but tintacks!
But to return from this excursion,
Just, do you mark, when the song was sweetest,
The piece most deep and the charm completest, There came, shall I say, a snap-
And the charm vanished!
And my sense returned, so strangely banished, And, starting as from a nap,
I knew the crone was bewitching my lady,
With Jacynth asleep; and but one spring made I
Down from the casement, round to the portal,- Another minute and I had entered,-
When the door opened, and more than mortal Stood, with a face where to my mind centred All beauties I ever saw or shall see,
The Duchess: I stopped as if struck by palsy. She was so different, happy and beautiful, I felt at once that all was best,
And that I had nothing to do, for the rest, But wait her commands, obey and be dutiful. Not that, in fact, there was any commanding; I saw the glory of her eye,
And the brow's height and the breast's expanding, And I was hers to live or to die.
As for finding what she wanted, You know God Almighty granted
Such little signs should serve wild creatures
To tell one another all their desires,
So that each knows what his friend requires, And does its bidding without teachers. I preceded her; the crone
Followed silent and alone;
I spoke to her, but she merely jabbered In the old style; both her eyes had slunk Back to their pits; her stature shrunk; In short, the soul in its body sunk Like a blade sent home to its scabbard. We descended, I preceding; Crossed the court with nobody heeding; All the world was at the chase, The court-yard like a desert place, The stable emptied of its small fry. I saddled myself the very palfrey
I remember patting while it carried her, The day she arrived and the Duke married her. And, do you know, though it's easy deceiving
Oneself in such matters, I can't help believing The lady had not forgotten it either,
And knew the poor devil so much beneath her Would have been only too glad, for her service, To dance on hot ploughshares like a Turk dervise, But, unable to pay proper duty where owing it, Was reduced to that pitiful method of showing it. For though, the moment I began setting
His saddle on my own nag of Berold's begetting, (Not that I meant to be obtrusive)
She stopped me, while his rug was shifting, By a single rapid finger's lifting,
And, with a gesture kind but conclusive,
And a little shake of the head, refused me,—
I say, although she never used me,
Yet when she was mounted, the Gipsy behind her, And I ventured to remind her,
suppose with a voice of less steadiness
Than usual, for my feeling exceeded me,
-Something to the effect that I was in readiness Whenever God should please she needed me,— Then, do you know, her face looked down on me With a look, a look that placed a crown on me, And she felt in her bosom,-mark, her bosom— And, as a flower-tree drops its blossom, Dropped me.. ah, had it been a purse Of silver, my friend, or gold that 's worse, Why, you see, as soon as I found myself So understood,—that a true heart so may gain Such a reward,—I should have gone home again, Kissed Jacynth, and soberly drowned myself! It was a little plait of hair
Such as friends in a convent make To wear, each for the other's sake,— This, see, which at my breast I wear, Ever did (rather to Jacynth's grudgment),
And ever shall, till the Day of Judgment. And then, and then,- to cut short,-this is idle, These are feelings it is not good to foster,-
I pushed the gate wide, she shook the bridle, And the palfrey bounded,—and so we lost her.
When the liquor 's out why clink the cannikin? I did think to describe you the panic in The redoubtable breast of our master the mannikin, And what was the pitch of his mother's yellowness, How she turned as a shark to snap the spare-rib Clean off, sailors say, from a pearl-diving Carib, When she heard, what she called the flight of the feloness
-But it seems such child's play,
What they said and did with the lady away! And to dance on, when we 've lost the music, Always made me—and no doubt makes you-sick Nay, to my mind, the world's face looked so stern As that sweet form disappeared through the postern, She that kept it in constant good humour,
It ought to have stopped; there seemed nothing to do
But the world thought otherwise and went on,
And my head 's one that its spite was spent on: Thirty years are fled since that morning,
And with them all my head's adorning.
Nor did the old Duchess die outright,
As you expect, of suppressed spite,
The natural end of every adder
Not suffered to empty its poison-bladder : But she and her son agreed, I take it,
That no one should touch on the story to wake it, For the wound in the Duke's pride rankled fiery ; So, they made no search and small inquiry :
And when fresh Gipsies have paid us a visit, I 've Noticed the couple were never inquisitive,
But told them they 're folks the Duke don't want here, And bade them make haste and cross the frontier. Brief, the Duchess was gone and the Duke was glad
And the old one was in the young one's stead, And took, in her place, the household's head, And a blessed time the household had of it! And were I not, as a man may say, cautious How I trench, more than needs, on the nauseous, I could favour you with sundry touches
Of the paint-smutches with which the Duchess Heightened the mellowness of her cheek's yellowness (To get on faster) until at last her
Cheek grew to be one master-plaster
Of mucus and fucus from mere use of ceruse :
In short, she grew from scalp to udder
What a thing friendship is, world without end! How it gives the heart and soul a stir-up As if somebody broached you a glorious runlet, And poured out, all lovelily, sparklingly, sunlit, Our green Moldavia, the streaky syrup, Cotnar as old as the time of the Druids- Friendship may match with that monarch of fluids; Each supples a dry brain, fills you its ins-and-outs, Gives your life's hour-glass a shake when the thin sand doubts
Whether to run on or stop short, and guarantees Age is not all made of stark sloth and arrant ease. I have seen my little lady once more,
Jacynth, the Gipsy, Berold, and the rest of it,
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