As the Kaiser's courier blew his horn, The Duke looked down and seemed to wince, groom, In a chamber next to an ante-room, To flap each broad wing like a banner, And turn in the wind, and dance like flame!) Had they broached a cask of white beer from Berlin! —Or if you incline to prescribe mere wine Put to his lips when they saw him pine, Cotnar for instance, green as May sorrel IV. So, at home, the sick tall yellow Duchess And back came the Duke and his mother again. V. And he came back the pertest little ape Full of his travel, struck at himself. You'd say, he despised our bluff old ways? -Not he! For in Paris they told the elf That our rough North land was the Land of Lays, Since the Mid-Age was the Heroic Time, And only in wild nooks like ours Could you taste of it yet as in its prime, So, all that the old Dukes had been, without knowing it, This Duke would fain know he was, without being it; The souls of them fumed-forth, the hearts of them torn out: And chief in the chase his neck he perilled, On a lathy horse, all legs and length, VI. Well, such as he was, he must marry, Came the lady, in time of spring. we heard: -Oh, old thoughts they cling, they cling! Fit for the chase of urox or buffle In winter-time when you need to muffle. But the Duke had a mind we should cut a figure, And 30 we saw the lady arrive : My friend, I have seen a white crane bigger! She was the smallest lady alive, Made in a piece of nature's madness, Too small, almost, for the life and gladness That over-filled her, as some hive Out of the bears' reach on the high trees Is crowded with its safe merry bees : In truth, she was not hard to please! Up she looked, down she looked, round at the mead, To look at from outside the walls: As for us, styled the "serfs and thralls," She as much thanked me as if she had said it, (With her eyes, do you understand ?) Because I patted her horse while I led it; And Max, who rode on her other hand, Said, no bird flew past but she inquired What its true name was, nor ever seemed tired If that was an eagle she saw hover, And the green and grey bird on the field was the plover. When suddenly appeared the Duke: And as down she sprung, the small foot pointed On to my hand,—as with a rebuke, And as if his backbone were not jointed, The Duke stepped rather aside than forward, As if her first hair had grown grey; For such things must begin some one day. VII. In a day or two she was well again; "This is all a jest against God, who meant "I should ever be, as I am, content "And glad in his sight; therefore, glad I will be." So, smiling as at first went she. VIII. She was active, stirring, all fire- To a stone she might have given life! -For a shepherd's, miner's, huntsman's wife, (I had a wife, I know what I say) There was already this man in his post, To sit thus, stand thus, see and be seen, And it was amusing enough, each infraction And, being a fool, instruct the wise, And, child-like, parcel out praise or blame : |