The Flight of the Duchess

You're my friend:I was the man the Duke spoke to;I helped the Duchess to cast off his yoke, too;So here's the tale from beginning to end,My friend!

Ours is a great wild country:If you climb to our castle's top,I don't see where your eye can stop;For when you've passed the cornfield country,Where vineyards leave off, flocks are packed,And sheep-range leads to cattle-tract,And cattle-tract to open-chase,And open-chase to the very baseOf the mountain where, at a funeral pace,Round about, solemn and slow,One by one, row after row,Up and up the pine-trees go,So, like black priests up, and soDown the other side againTo another greater, wilder country,That's one vast red drear burnt-up plain,Branched through and through with many a veinWhence iron's dug, and copper's dealt;Look right, look left, look straight before--Beneath they mine, above they smelt,Copper-ore and iron-ore,And forge and furnace mold and meltAnd so on, more and ever more,Till at the last, for a bounding belt,Comes the salt sand hoar of the great seashore,--And the whole is our Duke's country.

I was born the day this present Duke was--(And O, says the song, ere I was old!)In the castle where the other Duke was--(When I was happy and young, not old!)I in the kennel, he in the bower:We are of like age to an hour.My father was huntsman in that day;Who has not heard my father sayThat, when a boar was brought to bay,Three times, four times out of five,With his huntspear he'd contriveTo get the killing-place transfixed,And pin him true, both eyes betwixt?And that's why the old Duke would ratherHe lost a salt-pit than my father,And loved to have him ever in call;That's why my father stood in the hallWhen the old Duke brought his infant outTo show the people, and while they passedThe wondrous bantling round about,Was first to start at the outside blastAs the Kaiser's courier blew his horn,Just a month after the babe was born."And," quoth the Kaiser's courier, "sinceThe Duke has got an heir, our PrinceNeeds the Duke's self at his side";The Duke looked down and seemed to wince,But he thought of wars o'er the world wide,Castles a-fire, men on their march,The toppling tower, the crashing arch;And up he looked, and awhile he eyedThe row of crests and shields and bannersOf all achievements after all manners,And "aye," said the Duke with a surly pride.The more was his comfort when he diedAt next year's end, in a velvet suit,With a gilt glove on his hand, his footIn a silken shoe for a leather boot,Petticoated like a herald,In a chamber next to an ante-room,Where he breathed the breath of page and groom,What he called stink, and they, perfume:--They should have set him on red BeroldMad with pride, like fire to manage!They should have got his cheek fresh tannageSuch a day as today in the merry sunshine!Had they stuck on his fist a rough-foot merlin!(Hark, the wind's on the heath at its game!Oh, for a noble falcon-lannerTo flap each broad wing like a banner,And turn in the wind, and dance like flame!)Had they broached a white-beer cask from Berlin--Or if you incline to prescribe mere winePut to his lips, when they saw him pine,A cup of our own Moldavia fine,Cotnar for instance, green as May sorrelAnd ropy with sweet--we shall not quarrel.

So, at home, the sick, tall, yellow DuchessWas left with the infant in her clutches,She being the daughter of God knows who:And now was the time to revisit her tribe.Abroad and afar they went, the two,And let our people rail and gibeAt the empty hall and extinguished fire,As loud as we liked, but ever in vain,Till after long years we had our desire,And back came the Duke and his mother again.

And he came back the pertest little apeThat ever affronted human shape;Full of his travel, struck at himself.You'd say he despised our bluff old ways?--Not he! For in Paris they told the elfOur rough North land was the Land of Lays,The one good thing left in evil days;Since the Mid-Age was the Heroic Time,And only in wild nooks like oursCould you taste of it yet as in its prime,And see true castles, with proper towers,Young-hearted women, old-minded men,And manners now as manners were then.So, all that the old Dukes had been, without knowing it,This Duke would fain know he was, without being it;'Twas not for the joy's self, but the joy of his showing it,Nor for the pride's self, but the pride of our seeing it,He revived all usages thoroughly worn-out,The souls of them fumed-forth, the hearts of them torn-out:And chief in the chase his neck he periledOn a lathy horse, all legs and length,With blood for bone, all speed, no strength;--They should have set him on red BeroldWith the red eye slow consuming in fire,And the thin stiff ear like an abbey-spire!

Well, such as he was, he must marry, we heard:And out of a convent, at the word,Came the lady in time of spring.--Oh, old thoughts they cling, they cling!That day, I know, with a dozen oathsI clad myself in thick hunting-clothesFit for the chase of urochs or buffleIn winter-time when you need to muffle.But the Duke had a mind we should cut a figure,And so 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 gladnessThat overfilled her, as some hiveOut of the bears' reach on the high treesIs crowded with its safe, merry bees:In truth, she was not hard to please!Up she looked, down she looked, round at the mead,Straight at the castle, that's best indeedTo 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 inquiredWhat its true name was, nor ever seemed tired--If that was an eagle she saw hover,And the green and gray bird on the field was the plover.When suddenly appeared the Duke:And as down she sprung, the small foot pointedOn to my hand--as with a rebuke,And as if his backbone were not jointed,The Duke stepped rather aside than forward,And welcomed her with his grandest smile;And, mind you, his mother all the whileChilled in the rear, like a wind to Nor'ward;And up, like a weary yawn, with its pulleysWent, in a shriek, the rusty portcullis;And, like a glad sky the north-wind sullies,The lady's face stopped its play,As if her first hair had grown gray;For such things must begin some one day.

In a day or two she was well again;As who should say, "You labor in vain!This is all a jest against God, who meantI should ever be, as I am, contentAnd glad in His sight; therefore, glad I will be."So, smiling as at first, went she.

She was active, stirring, all fire--Could not rest, could not tire--To a stone she might have given life!(I myself loved once, in my day)--For a shepherd's, miner's, huntsman's wife,(I had a wife, I know what I say)Never in all the world such an one!And here was plenty to be done,And she that could do it, great or small,She was to do nothing at all.There was already this man in his post,This in his station, and that in his office,And the Duke's plan admitted a wife, at most,To meet his eye, with the other trophies,Now outside the hall, now in it,To sit thus, stand thus, see and be seen,At the proper place in the proper minute,And die away the life between.And it was amusing enough, each infractionOf rule--(but for after-sadness that came)To hear the consummate self-satisfactionWith which the young Duke and the old dameWould let her advise, and criticize,And, being a fool, instruct the wise,And, child-like, parcel out praise or blame:They bore it all in complacent guise,As though an artificer, after contrivingA wheel-work image as if it were living,Should find with delight it could motion to strike him!So found the Duke, and his mother like him:The lady hardly got a rebuff--That had not been contemptuous enough,With his cursed smirk, as he nodded applause,And kept off the old mother-cat's claws.

So, the little lady grew silent and thin,Paling and ever paling,As the way is with a hid chagrin;And the Duke perceived that she was ailing,And said in his heart, "'Tis done to spite me,But I shall find in my power to right me!"Don't swear, friend! The old one, many a year,Is in hell, and the Duke's self ... you shall hear.

Well, early in autumn, at first winter-warning,When the stag had to break with his foot, of a morning,A drinking-hole out of the fresh tender iceThat covered the pond till the sun, in a trice,Loosening it, let out a ripple of gold,And another and another, and faster and faster,Till, dimpling to blindness, the wide water rolled;Then it so chanced that the Duke our masterAsked himself what were the pleasures in season,And found, since the calendar bade him be hearty,He should do the Middle Age no treasonIn resolving on a hunting-party.Always provided, old books showed the way of it!What meant old poets by their strictures?And when old poets had said their say of it,How taught old painters in their pictures?We must revert to the proper channels,Workings in tapestry, paintings on panels,And gather up woodcraft's authentic traditions:Here was food for our various ambitions,As on each case, exactly stated--To encourage your dog, now, the properest chirrup,Or best prayer to Saint Hubert on mounting your stirrup--We of the household took thought and debated.Blessed was he whose back ached with the jerkinHis sire was wont to do forest-work in;Blesseder he who nobly sunk "ohs"And "ahs" while he tugged on his grandsire's trunk-hose;What signified hats if they had no rims on,Each slouching before and behind like the scallop,And able to serve at sea for a shallop,Loaded with lacquer and looped with crimson?So that the deer now, to make a short rhyme on't,What with our Venerers, Prickers, and Verderers,Might hope for real hunters at length and not murderers,And, oh, the Duke's tailor, he had a hot time on't!

Now you must know that when the first dizzinessOf flap-hats and buff-coats and jack-boots subsided,The Duke put this question, "The Duke's part provided,Had not the Duchess some share in the business?"For out of the mouth of two or three witnessesDid he establish all fit-or-unfitnesses:And, after much laying of heads together,Somebody's cap got a notable featherBy the announcement with proper unctionThat he had discovered the lady's function;Since ancient authors gave this tenet,"When horns wind a mort and the deer is at siege,Let the dame of the castle prick forth on her jennet,And, with water to wash the hands of her liegeIn a clean ewer with a fair toweling,Let her preside at the disemboweling."Now, my friend, if you had so little religionAs to catch a hawk, some falcon-lanner,And thrust her broad wings like a bannerInto a coop for a vulgar pigeon;And if day by day and week by weekYou cut her claws, and sealed her eyes,And clipped her wings, and tied her beak,Would it cause you any great surpriseIf, when you decided to give her an airing,You found she needed a little preparing?--I say, should you be such a curmudgeon,If she clung to the perch, as to take it in dudgeon?Yet when the Duke to his lady signified,Just a day before, as he judged most dignified,In what a pleasure she was to participate--And, instead of leaping wide in flashes,Her eyes just lifted their long lashes,As if pressed by fatigue even he could not dissipate,And duly acknowledged the Duke's forethought,But spoke of her health, if her health were worth aught,Of the weight by day and the watch by night,And much wrong now that used to be right,So, thanking him, declined the hunting--Was conduct ever more affronting?With all the ceremony settled--With the towel ready, and the sewerPolishing up his oldest ewer,And the jennet pitched upon, a piebald,Black-barred, cream-coated, and pink eye-balled--No wonder if the Duke was nettled!And when she persisted nevertheless--Well, I suppose here's the time to confessThat there ran half round our lady's chamberA balcony none of the hardest to clamber;And that Jacynth, the tire-woman, ready in waiting,Stayed in call outside, what need of relating?And since Jacynth was like a June rose, why, a ferventAdorer of Jacynth of course was your servant;And if she had the habit to peep through the casement,How could I keep at any vast distance?And so, as I say, on the lady's persistence,The Duke, dumb-stricken with amazement,Stood for a while in a sultry smother,And then, with a smile that partook of the awful,Turned her over to his yellow motherTo learn what was held decorous and lawful;And the mother smelt blood with a cat-like instinct,As her cheek quick whitened through all its quince-tinct.Oh, but the lady heard the whole truth at once!What meant she?--Who was she?--Her duty and station,The wisdom of age and the folly of youth, at once,Its decent regard and its fitting relation--In brief, my friend, set all the devils in hell freeAnd turn them out to carouse in a belfryAnd treat the priests to a fifty-part canon,And then you may guess how that tongue of hers ran on!Well, somehow or other it ended at lastAnd, licking her whiskers, out she passed;And after her--making (he hoped) a faceLike Emperor Nero or Sultan Saladin,Stalked the Duke's self with the austere graceOf ancient hero or modern paladin,From door to staircase--oh, such a solemnUnbending of the vertebral column!

However, at sunrise our company mustered;And here was the huntsman bidding unkennel,And there 'neath his bonnet the pricker blustered,With feather dank as a bough of wet fennel;For the courtyard walls were filled with fogYou might have cut as an ax chops a log--Like so much wool for color and bulkiness;And out rode the Duke in a perfect sulkiness,Since, before breakfast, a man feels but queasily,And a sinking at the lower abdomenBegins the day with indifferent omen.And lo, as he looked around uneasily,The sun plowed the fog up and drove it asunderThis way and that from the valley under;And, looking through the court-yard arch,Down in the valley, what should meet himBut a troop of gypsies on their march?No doubt with the annual gifts to greet him.

Now, in your land, gypsies reach you onlyAfter reaching all lands beside;North they go, South they go, trooping or lonely,And still, as they travel far and wide,Catch they and keep now a trace here, a trace there,That puts you in mind of a place here, a place thereBut with us, I believe they rise out of the ground,And nowhere else, I take it, are foundWith the earth-tint yet so freshly embrowned:Born, no doubt, like insects which breed onThe very fruit they are meant to feed on.For the earth--not a use to which they don't turn it,The ore that grows in the mountain's womb,Or the sand in the pits like a honeycomb,They sift and soften it, bake it and burn it--Whether they weld you, for instance, a snaffleWith side-bars never a brute can baffle;Or a lock that's a puzzle of wards within wards;Or, if your colt's forefoot inclines to curve inwards,Horseshoes they hammer which turn on a swivelAnd won't allow the hoof to shrivel.Then they cast bells like the shell of the winkleThat keep a stout heart in the ram with their tinkle;But the sand--they pinch and pound it like otters;Commend me the gypsy glass-makers and potters!Glasses they'll blow you, crystal-clear,Where just a faint cloud of rose shall appear,As if in pure water you dropped and let dieA bruised black-blooded mulberry;And that other sort, their crowning pride,With long white threads distinct inside,Like the lake-flower's fibrous roots which dangleLoose such a length and never tangle,Where the bold sword-lily cuts the clear waters,And the cup-lily couches with all the white daughters:Such are the works they put their hand to,The uses they turn and twist iron and sand to.And these made the troop, which our Duke saw sallyToward his castle from out of the valley,Men and women, like new-hatched spiders,Come out with the morning to greet our riders.And up they wound till they reached the ditch,Whereat all stopped save one, a witchThat I knew, as she hobbled from the group,By her gait directly and her stoop,I, whom Jacynth was used to importuneTo let that same witch tell us our fortune.The oldest gypsy then above ground;And, sure as the autumn season came round,She paid us a visit for profit or pastime,And every time, as she swore, for the last time.And presently she was seen to sidleUp to the Duke till she touched his bridle,So that the horse of a sudden reared upAs under its nose the old witch peered upWith her worn-out eyes, or rather eye-holesOf no use now but to gather brine,And began a kind of level whineSuch as they used to sing to their violsWhen their ditties they go grindingUp and down with nobody minding;And then, as of old, at the end of the hummingHer usual presents were forthcoming--A dog-whistle blowing the fiercest of trebles(Just a seashore stone holding a dozen fine pebbles),Or a porcelain mouthpiece to screw on a pipe-end--And so she awaited her annual stipend.But this time the Duke would scarcely vouchsafeA word in reply; and in vain she feltWith twitching fingers at her beltFor the purse of sleek pine-marten pelt,Ready to put what he gave in her pouch safe--Till, either to quicken his apprehension,Or possibly with an after-intention,She was come, she said, to pay her dutyTo the new Duchess, the youthful beauty.No sooner had she named his ladyThan a shine lit up the face so shady,And its smirk returned with a novel meaning--For it struck him, the babe just wanted weaning;If one gave her a taste of what life was and sorrow,She, foolish today, would be wiser tomorrow;And who so fit a teacher of troubleAs this sordid crone bent well-nigh double?So, glancing at her wolf-skin vesture,(If such it was, for they grow so hirsuteThat their own fleece serves for natural fur-suit)He was contrasting, 'twas plain from his gesture,The life of the lady so flower-like and delicateWith the loathsome squalor of this helicat.I, in brief, was the man the Duke beckonedFrom out of the throng, and while I drew nearHe told the crone--as I since have reckonedBy the way he bent and spoke into her earWith circumspection and mystery--The main of the lady's history,Her frowardness and ingratitude:And for all the crone's submissive attitudeI could see round her mouth the loose plaits tightening,And her brow with assenting intelligence brightening,As though she engaged with hearty goodwillWhatever he now might enjoin to fulfill,And promised the lady a thorough frightening.And so, just giving her a glimpseOf a purse, with the air of a man who impsThe wing of the hawk that shall fetch the hernshaw,He bade me take the gypsy motherAnd set her telling some story or otherOf hill or dale, oak-wood or fernshaw,To wile away a weary hourFor the lady left alone in her bower,Whose mind and body craved exertionAnd yet shrank from all better diversion.

Then clapping heel to his horse, the mere curveter,Out rode the Duke, and after his holloHorses and hounds swept, huntsman and servitor,And back I turned and bade the crone follow.And what makes me confident what's to be told youHad all along been of this crone's devising,Is, that, on looking round sharply, behold you,There was a novelty quick as surprising:For first, she had shot up a full head in stature,And her step kept pace with mine nor faltered,As if age had foregone its usurpature,And the ignoble mien was wholly altered,And the face looked quite of another nature,And the change reached too, whatever the change meant,Her shaggy wolf-skin cloak's arrangement:For where its tatters hung loose like sedges,Gold coins were glittering on the edges,Like the band-roll strung with tomansWhich proves the veil a Persian woman's:And under her brow, like a snail's horns newlyCome out as after the rain he paces,Two unmistakable eye-points dulyLive and aware looked out of their places.So, we went and found Jacynth at the entryOf the lady's chamber standing sentry;I told the command and produced my companion,And Jacynth rejoiced to admit anyone,For since last night, by the same token,Not a single word had the lady spoken:They went in both to the presence together,While I in the balcony watched the weather.

And now, what took place at the very first of all,I cannot tell, as I never could learn it:Jacynth constantly wished a curse to fallOn that little head of hers and burn it,If she knew how she came to drop so soundlyAsleep of a sudden and there continueThe whole time sleeping as profoundlyAs one of the boars my father would pin you'Twixt the eyes where life holds garrison,--Jacynth forgive me the comparison!But where I begin my own narrationIs a little after I took my stationTo breathe the fresh air from the balcony,And, having in those days a falcon eye,To follow the hunt through the open country,From where the bushes thinlier crestedThe hillocks, to a plain where's not one tree.When, in a moment, my ear was arrestedBy--was it singing, or was it saying,Or a strange musical instrument playingIn the chamber?--and to be certainI pushed the lattice, pulled the curtain,And there lay Jacynth asleep,Yet as if a watch she tried to keep,In a rosy sleep along the floorWith her head against the door;While in the midst, on the seat of state,Was a queen--the gypsy woman late,With head and face downbentOn the lady's head and face intent:For, coiled at her feet like a child at ease,The lady sat between her knees,And o'er them the lady's clasped hands met,And on those hands her chin was set,And her upturned face met the face of the croneWherein the eyes had grown and grownAs if she could double and quadrupleAt pleasure the play of either pupil--Very like, by her hands' slow fanning,As up and down like a gor-crow's flappersThey moved to measure, or bell-clappers.I said, "Is it blessing, is it banning,Do they applaud you or burlesque youThose hands and fingers with no flesh on?"But, just as I thought to spring in to the rescue,At once I was stopped by the lady's expression:For it was life her eyes were drinkingFrom the crone's wide pair above unwinking,--Life's pure fire received without shrinking,Into the heart and breast whose heavingTold you no single drop they were leaving--Life, that filling her, passed redundantInto her very hair, back swervingOver each shoulder, loose and abundant,As her head thrown back showed the white throat curving;And the very tresses shared in the pleasure,Moving to the mystic measure,Bounding as the bosom bounded.I stopped short, more and more confounded,As still her cheeks burned and eyes glistened,As she listened and she listened:When all at once a hand detained me,The selfsame contagion gained me,And I kept time to the wondrous chime,Making out words and prose and rhyme,Till it seemed that the music furledIts wings like a task fulfilled, and droppedFrom under the words it first had propped,And left them midway in the world:Word took word as hand takes hand,I could hear at last, and understand,And when I held the unbroken thread,The gypsy said:"And so at last we find my tribe.And so I set thee in the midst,And to one and all of them describeWhat thou saidst and what thou didst,Our long and terrible journey through,And all thou art ready to say and doIn the trials that remain:I trace them the vein and the other veinThat meet on thy brow and part again,Making our rapid mystic mark;And I bid my people prove and probeEach eye's profound and glorious globeTill they detect the kindred sparkIn those depths so dear and dark,Like the spots that snap and burst and flee,Circling over the midnight sea.And on that round young cheek of thineI make them recognize the tinge,As when of the costly scarlet wineThey drip so much as will impingeAnd spread in a thinnest scale afloatOne thick gold drop from the olive's coatOver a silver plate whose sheenStill through the mixture shall be seen.For so I prove thee, to one and all,Fit, when my people ope their breast,To see the sign, and hear the call,And take the vow, and stand the testWhich adds one more child to the rest--When the breast is bare and the arms are wide,And the world is left outside.For there is probation to decree,And many and long must the trials beThou shalt victoriously endure,If that brow is true and those eyes are sure;Like a jewel-finder's fierce assayOf the prize he dug from its mountain-tomb--Let once the vindicating rayLeap out amid the anxious gloom,And steel and fire have done their partAnd the prize falls on its finder's heart;So, trial after trial past,Wilt thou fall at the very lastBreathless, half in tranceWith the thrill of the great deliverance,Into our arms forevermore;And thou shalt know, those arms once curledAbout thee, what we knew before,How love is the only good in the world.Henceforth be loved as heart can love,Or brain devise, or hand approve!Stand up, look below,It is our life at thy feet we throwTo step with into light and joy;Not a power of life but we employTo satisfy thy nature's want;Art thou the tree that props the plant,Or the climbing plant that seeks the tree--Canst thou help us, must we help thee?If any two creatures grew into one,They would do more than the world has done:Though each apart were never so weak,Ye vainly through the world should seekFor the knowledge and the mightWhich in such union grew their right:So, to approach at least that end,And blend--as much as may be, blendThee with us or us with thee--As climbing plant or propping tree,Shall someone deck thee, over and down,Up and about, with blossoms and leaves?Fix his heart's fruit for thy garland-crown,Cling with his soul as the gourd-vine cleaves,Die on thy boughs and disappearWhile not a leaf of thine is sere?Or is the other fate in store,And art thou fitted to adore,To give thy wondrous self away,And take a stronger nature's sway?I foresee and could foretellThy future portion, sure and well:But those passionate eyes speak true, speak true,Let them say what thou shalt do!Only be sure thy daily life,In its peace or in its strife,Never shall be unobserved;We pursue thy whole career,And hope for it, or doubt, or fear--Lo, hast thou kept thy path or swerved,We are beside thee in all thy ways,With our blame, with our praise,Our shame to feel, our pride to show,Glad, angry--but indifferent, no!Whether it be thy lot to go,For the good of us all, where the haters meetIn the crowded city's horrible street;Or thou step alone through the morassWhere never sound yet wasSave the dry quick clap of the stork's bill,For the air is still, and the water still,When the blue breast of the dipping cootDives under, and all is mute.So, at the last shall come old age,Decrepit as befits that stage;How else wouldst thou retire apartWith the hoarded memories of thy heart,And gather all to the very leastOf the fragments of life's earlier feast,Let fall through eagerness to findThe crowning dainties yet behind?Ponder on the entire pastLaid together thus at last,When the twilight helps to fuseThe 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 gleamOf 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"----Aye, 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 penTo paper and put you down every syllableWith those clever clerkly fingers,All I've forgotten as well as what lingersIn this old brain of mine that's but ill ableTo give you even this poor versionOf the speech I spoil, as it were, with stammering--More fault of those who had the hammeringOf prosody into me and syntax,And did it, not with hobnails but tin-tacks!But to return from this excursion--Just, do you mark, when the song was sweetest,The peace 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 IDown from the casement, round to the portal,Another minute and I had entered--When the door opened, and more than mortalStood, with a face where to my mind centeredAll 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 grantedSuch little signs should serve wild creaturesTo tell one another all their desires,So that each knows what his friend requires,And does its bidding without teachers.I preceded her: the croneFollowed silent and alone;I spoke to her, but she merely jabberedIn the old style; both her eyes had slunkBack to their pits; her stature shrunk;In short, the soul in its body sunkLike 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 courtyard like a desert-place,The stable emptied of its small fry;I saddled myself the very palfreyI remember patting while it carried her,The day she arrived and the Duke married her.And, do you know, though it's easy deceivingOneself in such matters, I can't help believingThe lady had not forgotten it either,And knew the poor devil so much beneath herWould have been only too glad for her serviceTo dance on hot plowshares 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 settingHis 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 gypsy behind her,And I ventured to remind her,I suppose with a voice of less steadinessThan usual, for my feeling exceeded me,--Something to the effect that I was in readinessWhenever God should please she needed me--Then, do you know, her face looked down on meWith 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 purseOf silver, my friend, or gold that's worse,Why, you see, as soon as I found myselfSo understood--that a true heart so may gainSuch a reward--I should have gone home again,Kissed Jacynth, and soberly drowned myself!It was a little plait of hairSuch as friends in a convent makeTo 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 inThe 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-ribClean off, sailors says, 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 sternAs that sweet form disappeared through the postern,She that kept it in constant good humor,It ought to have stopped; there seemed nothing to do more.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 adderNot 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 gypsies have paid us a visit, I'veNoticed 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 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, cautiousHow I trench, more than needs, on the nauseous,I could favor you with sundry touchesOf the paint-smutches with which the DuchessHeightened the mellowness of her cheek's yellowness(To get on faster) until at last herCheek grew to be one master-plasterOf mucus and fucus from mere use of ceruse:In short, she grew from scalp to udderJust the object to make you shudder.

You're my friend--What a thing friendship is, world without end!How it gives the heart and soul a stir-upAs 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 hourglass a shake when the thin sand doubtsWhether to run on or stop short, and guaranteesAge is not all made of stark sloth and arrant ease.I have seen my little lady once more,Jacynth, the gypsy, 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'll tell you what I intend to do:I must see this fellow his sad life through--He is our Duke, after all,And I, as he says, but a serf and thrall.My father was born here, and I inheritHis fame, a chain he bound his son with;Could I pay in a lump I should prefer it,But there's no mine to blow up and get done with:So, I must stay till the end of the chapter.For, as to our middle-age-manners-adapter,Be it a thing to be glad on or sorry on,Some day or other, his head in a morionAnd breast in a hauberk, his heels he'll kick up,Slain by an onslaught fierce of hiccup.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 javelinWith 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 labor, 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 turmoilAnd arrive one day at the land of the gypsies,And find my lady, or hear the last news of herFrom some old thief and son of Lucifer,His forehead chapleted green with wreathy hop,Sunburned all over like an AEthiop.And when my Cotnar begins to operateAnd 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 attendedThe 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 equineWho still preferred some slim four-year-oldTo 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 cornerUnder 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 blowingWakes me (unless priests cheat us laymen)To a world where will be no further throwingPearls before swine that can't value them. Amen!