If we've promised them aught, let us keep our promise!

THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS

I

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! 5

II

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, 10
And sheep-range leads to cattle-tract,
And cattle-tract to open-chase,
And open-chase to the very base
Of the mountain where, at a funeral pace,
Round about, solemn and slow, 15
One by one, row after row,
Up and up the pine-trees go,
So, like black priests up, and so
Down the other side again
To another greater, wilder country, 20
That's one vast red drear burnt-up plain,
Branched through and through with many a vein
Whence iron's dug, and copper's dealt;
Look right, look left, look straight before--
Beneath they mine, above they smelt, 25
Copper-ore and iron-ore,
And forge and furnace mold and melt
And so on, more and ever more,
Till at the last, for a bounding belt,
Comes the salt sand hoar of the great seashore, 30
--And the whole is our Duke's country.

III

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!) 35
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 say
That, when a boar was brought to bay, 40
Three times, four times out of five,
With his huntspear he'd contrive
To get the killing-place transfixed,
And pin him true, both eyes betwixt?
And that's why the old Duke would rather 45
He lost a salt-pit than my father,
And loved to have him ever in call;
That's why my father stood in the hall
When the old Duke brought his infant out
To show the people, and while they passed 50
The wondrous ba