Freckles with red and gold the moving swarm;
While here and there clear trumpets blow a keen alarm.
LXV.
And now the fairy escort was seen clear,
Like the old pageant of Aurora’s train,
Above a pearl-built minister, hovering near;
First wily Crafticant, the chamberlain,
Balanc’d upon his grey-grown pinions twain,
His slender wand officially reveal’d;
Then black gnomes scattering sixpences like rain;
Then pages three and three; and next, slave-held,
The Imaian ‘scutcheon bright, one mouse in argent field.
LXVI.
Gentlemen pensioners next; and after them,
A troop of winged Janizaries flew;
Then slaves, as presents bearing many a gem;
Then twelve physicians fluttering two and two;
And next a chaplain in a cassock new;
Then Lords in waiting; then (what head not reels
For pleasure?) the fair Princess in full view,
Borne upon wings, and very pleas’d she feels
To have such splendour dance attendance at her heels.
LXVII.
For there was more magnificence behind:
She wav’d her handkerchief. “Ah, very grand!”
Cry’d Elfinan, and clos’d the window-blind;
“And, Hum, we must not shilly-shally stand,
Adieu! adieu! I’m off for Angle-land!
I say, old Hocus, have you such a thing
About you, feel your pockets, I command,
I want, this instant, an invisible ring,
Thank you, old mummy! now securely I take wing.”
LXVIII.
Then Elfinan swift vaulted from the floor,
And lighted graceful on the window-sill;
Under one arm the magic book he bore,
The other he could wave about at will;
Pale was his face, he still look’d very ill;
He bow’d at Bellanaine, and said “Poor Bell!
Farewell! farewell! and if for ever! still
For ever fare thee well!” and then he fell
A laughing! snapp’d his fingers! shame it is to tell!
LXIX.
“By’r Lady! he is gone!” cries Hum, “and I
(I own it) have made too free with his wine;
Old Crafticant will smoke me. By-the-bye!
This room is full of jewels as a mine,
Dear valuable creatures, how ye shine!
Sometime to-day I must contrive a minute,
If Mercury propitiously incline,
To examine his scutoire, and see what’s in i,
For of superfluous diamonds I as well may thin it.
LXX.
“The Emperor’s horrid bad; yes, that’s my cue!”
Some histories say that this was Hum’s last speech;
That, being fuddled, he went reeling through
The corridor, and scarce upright could reach
The stair-head; that being glutted as a leech,
And us’d, as we ourselves have just now said,
To manage stairs reversely, like a peach
Too ripe, he fell, being puzzled in his head
With liquor and the staircase: verdict found stone dead.
LXXI.
This as a falsehood Crafticanto treats;
And as his style is of strange elegance,
Gentle and tender, full of soft conceits,
(Much like our Boswell’s,) we will take a glance
At his sweet prose, and, if we can, make dance
His woven periods into careless rhyme;
O, little faery Pegasus! rear prance
Trot round the quarto ordinary time!
March, little Pegasus, with pawing hoof sublime!
LXXII.
Well, let us see, tenth book and chapter nine,
Thus Crafticant pursues his diary:
“’Twas twelve o’clock at night, the weather fine,
Latitude thirty-six; our scouts descry
A flight of starlings making rapidly
Towards Thibet. Mem.: birds fly in the night;
From twelve to half-past wings not fit to fly
For a thick fog the Princess sulky quite;
Call’d for an extra shawl, and gave her nurse a bite.
LXXIII.
“Five minutes before one brought down a moth
With my new double-barrel stew’d the thighs
And made a very tolerable broth
Princess turn’d dainty, to our great surprise,
Alter’d her mind, and thought it very nice;
Seeing her pleasant, try’d her with a pun,
She frown’d; a monstrous owl across us flies
About this time, a sad old figure of fun;
Bad omen this new match can’t be a happy one.
LXXIV.
“From two to half-past, dusky way we made,
Above the plains of Gobi, desert, bleak;
Beheld afar off, in the hooded shade
Of darkness, a great mountain (strange to speak),
Spitting, from forth its sulphur-baken peak,
A fan-shap’d burst of blood-red, arrowy fire,
Turban’d with smoke, which still away did reek,
Solid and black from that eternal pyre,
Upon the laden winds that scantly could respire.
LXXV.
“Just upon three o’clock a falling star
Created an alarm among our troop,
Kill’d a man-cook, a page, and broke a jar,
A tureen, and three dishes, at one swoop,
Then passing by the princess, singed her hoop:
Could not conceive what Coralline was at,
She clapp’d her hands three times and cry’d out ‘Whoop!’
Some strange Imaian custom. A large bat
Came sudden ‘fore my face, and brush’d against my hat.
LXXVI.
“Five minutes thirteen seconds after three,
Far in the west a mighty fire broke out,