{280}
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,-- {290}
Was conduct ever more affronting?
With all the ceremony settled--
With the towel ready, and the sewer
Polishing 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 confess
That there ran half round our lady's chamber {300}
A balcony none of the hardest to clamber;
And that Jacynth the tire-woman, ready in waiting,
Staid in call outside, what need of relating?
And since Jacynth was like a June rose, why, a fervent
Adorer 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, {310}
And then, with a smile that partook of the awful,
Turned her over to his yellow mother
To learn what was 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 friends, set all the devils in hell free {320}
And turn them out to carouse in a belfry
And 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 last,
And, licking her whiskers, out she passed;
And after her,--making (he hoped) a face
Like Emperor Nero or Sultan Saladin,
Stalked the Duke's self with the austere gr