And the ripe plum still wears its dim attire
The undisturbed lake has crystal space,
Why then should man, teasing the world for grace,
Spoil his salvation for a fierce miscreed?
The Cap and Bells
In midmost Ind, beside Hydaspes cool,
There stood, or hover’d, tremulous in the air,
A faery city ‘neath the potent rule
Of Emperor Elfinan; fam’d ev’rywhere
For love of mortal women, maidens fair,
Whose lips were solid, whose soft hands were made
Of a fit mould and beauty, ripe and rare,
To tamper his slight wooing, warm yet staid:
He lov’d girls smooth as shades, but hated a mere shade.
This was a crime forbidden by the law;
And all the priesthood of his city wept,
For ruin and dismay they well foresaw,
If impious prince no bound or limit kept,
And faery Zendervester overstept;
They wept, he sin’d, and still he would sin on,
They dreamt of sin, and he sin’d while they slept;
In vain the pulpit thunder’d at the throne,
Caricature was vain, and vain the tart lampoon.
Which seeing, his high court of parliament
Laid a remonstrance at his Highness’ feet,
Praying his royal senses to content
Themselves with what in faery land was sweet,
Befitting best that shade with shade should meet:
Whereat, to calm their fears, he promis’d soon
From mortal tempters all to make retreat,
Aye, even on the first of the new moon,
An immaterial wife to espouse as heaven’s boon.
Meantime he sent a fluttering embassy
To Pigmio, of Imaus sovereign,
To half beg, and half demand, respectfully,
The hand of his fair daughter Bellanaine;
An audience had, and speeching done, they gain
Their point, and bring the weeping bride away;
Whom, with but one attendant, safely lain
Upon their wings, they bore in bright array,
While little harps were touch’d by many a lyric fay.
As in old pictures tender cherubim
A child’s soul thro’ the sapphir’d canvas bear,
So, thro’ a real heaven, on they swim
With the sweet princess on her plumag’d lair,
Speed giving to the winds her lustrous hair;
And so she journey’d, sleeping or awake,
Save when, for healthful exercise and air,
She chose to “promener à l’aile,” or take
A pigeon’s somerset, for sport or change’s sake.
“Dear Princess, do not whisper me so loud,”
Quoth Corallina, nurse and confidant,
“Do not you see there, lurking in a cloud,
Close at your back, that sly old Crafticant?
He hears a whisper plainer than a rant:
Dry up your tears, and do not look so blue;
He’s Elfinan’s great state-spy militant,
His running, lying, flying foot-man too,
Dear mistress, let him have no handle against you!
“Show him a mouse’s tail, and he will guess,
With metaphysic swiftness, at the mouse;
Show him a garden, and with speed no less,
He’ll surmise sagely of a dwelling house,
And plot, in the same minute, how to chouse
The owner out of it; show him a” “Peace!
Peace! nor contrive thy mistress’ ire to rouse!”
Return’d the Princess, “my tongue shall not cease
Till from this hated match I get a free release.
“Ah, beauteous mortal!” “Hush!” quoth Coralline,
“Really you must not talk of him, indeed.”
“You hush!” reply’d the mistress, with a shinee
Of anger in her eyes, enough to breed
In stouter hearts than nurse’s fear and dread:
’Twas not the glance itself made nursey flinch,
But of its threat she took the utmost heed;
Not liking in her heart an hour-long pinch,
Or a sharp needle run into her back an inch.
So she was silenc’d, and fair Bellanaine,
Writhing her little body with ennui,
Continued to lament and to complain,
That Fate, cross-purposing, should let her be
Ravish’d away far from her dear countree;
That all her feelings should be set at nought,
In trumping up this match so hastily,
With lowland blood; and lowland blood she thought
Poison, as every staunch true-born Imaian ought.
Sorely she griev’d, and wetted three or four
White Provence rose-leaves with her faery tears,
But not for this cause; alas! she had more
Bad reasons for her sorrow, as appears
In the fam’d memoirs of a thousand years,
Written by Crafticant, and published
By Parpaglion and Co., (those sly compeers
Who rak’d up ev’ry fact against the dead,)
In Scarab Street, Panthea, at the Jubal’s Head.
Where, after a long hypercritic howl
Against the vicious manners of the age,
He goes on to expose, with heart and soul,
What vice in this or that year was the rage,
Backbiting all the world in every page;
With special strictures on the horrid crime,
(Section’d and subsection’d with learning sage,)
Of faeries stooping on their wings sublime
To kiss a mortal’s lips, when such were in their prime.
Turn to the copious index,