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 sparerib 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! She that kept it in constant good humour, It ought to have stopped; there seemed nothing to do more. But the world thought otherwise and went on, Not suffered to empty its poison-bladder: That no one should touch on the story to wake it, And bade them make haste and cross the frontier. Brief, the Duchess was gone and the Duke was glad of it, 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 yellow ness (To get on faster) until at last her Of mucus and fucus from mere use of ceruse: You're my friend 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 DruidsFriendship may match with that monarch of fluids; Each supples a dry brain, fills you its ins-andouts, 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, For to me spoke the Duke, as I told you before; I always wanted to make a clean breast of it: And now it is made-why, my heart's blood, that went trickle, Trickle, but anon, in such muddy driblets, Is pumped up brisk now, through the main ventricle, And genially floats me about the giblets. I must see this fellow his sad life through— And I, as he says, but a serf and thrall. But there's no mine to blow up and get done with: So, I must stay till the end of the chapter. And then, when red doth the sword of our Duke rust. And its leathern sheath lie o'ergrown with a blue crust, Then I shall scrape together my earnings; For, you see, in the churchyard Jacynth reposes, And our children all went the way of the roses: It's a long lane that knows no turnings. One needs but little tackle to travel in; So, just one stout cloak shall I indue: And for a staff, what beats the javelin With which his boars my father pinned you? And then, for a purpose you shall hear presently, Taking some Cotnar, a tight plump skinful, I shall go journeying, who but I, pleasantly! Sorrow is vain and despondency sinful. What's a man's age? He must hurry more, that's all; Cram in a day, what his youth took a year to hold: When we mind labour, then only, we're too old What age had Methusalem when he begat Saul? And at last, as its haven some buffeted ship sees, (Come all the way from the north-parts with sperm oil) I hope to get safely out of the turmoil And arrive one day at the land of the Gipsies, And find my lady, or hear the last news of her From some old thief and son of Lucifer, His forehead chapleted green with wreathy hop, Sunburned all over like an Æthiop. And when my Cotnar begins to operate And the tongue of the rogue to run at a proper rate, And our wine-skin, tight once, shows each flaccid dent, I shall drop in with-as if by accident"You never knew, then, how it all ended, "What fortune good or bad attended "The little lady your Queen befriended?" -And when that's told me, what's remaining? This world's too hard for my explaining. The same wise judge of matters equine Who still preferred some slim four-year-old To the big-boned stock of mighty Berold, And, for strong Cotnar, drank French weak wine, He also must be such a lady's scorner! Smooth Jacob still robs homely Esau: Now up, now down, the world's one see-saw. -So, I shall find out some snug corner Under a hedge, like Orson the wood-knight, Turn myself round and bid the world good night; And sleep a sound sleep till the trumpet's blowing Wakes me (unless priests cheat us laymen) To a world where will be no further throwing Pearls before swine that can't value them. Amen! |