No one to see my Ape, my Dwarf, my Fool,
Or how I pace my Otaheitan mule.
Ape, Dwarf and Fool, why stand you gaping there?
Burst the door open, quick-or I declare
I'll switch you soundly and in pieces tear."
The Dwarf began to tremble and the Ape
Star'd at the Fool, the Fool was all agape,
The Princess grasp'd her switch, but just in time 20
The dwarf with piteous face began to rhyme.
"O mighty Princess did you ne'er hear tell
What your poor servants know but too too well?
Know you the three great crimes in faery land?
The first, alas! poor Dwarf, I understand-
I made a whipstock of a faery's wand-
The next is snoring in their company-
The next, the last, the direst of the three
Is making free when they are not at home.
I was a Prince-a baby prince-my doom
You see, I made a whipstock of a wand-
My top has henceforth slept in faery land.
He was a Prince, the Fool, a grown up Prince,
But he has never been a King's son since
He fell a-snoring at a faery Ball-
Your poor Ape was a prince and he, poor thing,
Picklock'd a faery's boudour-now no king,
But ape-so pray your highness stay awhile;
"Tis sooth indeed, we know it to our sorrow—
Persist and you may be an ape tomorrow-
While the Dwarf spake the Princess all for spite
Peal'd [sic] the brown hazel twig to lilly white,
Clench'd her small teeth, and held her lips apart,
Try'd to look unconcern'd with beating heart.
They saw her highness had made up her mind
And quaver'd like the reeds before the wind,
And they had had it, but, O happy chance!
The Ape for very fear began to dance
And grin'd as all his ugliness did ache—
She staid her vixen fingers for his sake,
He was so very ugly: then she took
Her pocket glass mirror and began to look
First at herself and [then] at him and then
She smil'd at her own beauteous face again.
Yet for all this-for all her pretty face
She took it in her head to see the place.
Women gain little from experience
Either in Lovers, husbands or expense.
The more the beauty, the more fortune too,
Beauty before the wide world never knew.
So each fair reasons-tho' it oft miscarries.
She thought her pretty face would please the fa[e]ries.
"My darling Ape I won't whip you today-
Give me the Picklock, sirrah, and go play."
They all three wept-but counsel was as vain
As crying cup biddy to drops of rain.
Yet lingeringly did the sad Ape forth draw
The Picklock from the Pocket in his Jaw.
The Princess took it and dismounting straight
Trip'd in blue silver'd slippers to the gate
And touch'd thewards, the Door opes full cou[r]teou[s]ly
Opened--she enter'd with her servants three.
Again it clos'd and there was nothing seen
But the Mule grazing on the herbage green.
End of Canto xii
The Mule no sooner saw himself alone
Than he prick'd up his Ears-and said "well done! At least, unhappy Prince, I may be free
No more a Princess shall side-saddle me.
O King of Othaietè-tho' a Mule
'Aye every inch a King'-tho' 'Fortune's fool'- 80 Well done-for by what Mr. Dwarfy said
I would not give a sixpence for her head."
Even as he spake he trotted in high glee
To the knotty side of an old Pollard tree
And rub['d] his sides against the mossed bark
Till his Girths burst and left him naked stark
Except his Bridle-how get rid of that,
Buckled and tied with many a twist and plait ?
At last it struck him to pretend to sleep
And then the thievish Monkeys down would creep 90
And filch the unpleasant trammels quite away.
No sooner thought of than adown he lay,
Sham'd a good snore-the Monkey-men descended
And whom they thought to injure they befriended.
They hung his Bridle on a topmost bough
And of[f] he went, run, trot, or anyhow-
Brown is gone to bed—and I am tired of rhyming...
SPENSERIAN STANZAS
ON CHARLES ARMITAGE BROWN
He is to weet a melancholy carle:
Thin in the waist, with bushy head of hair, As hath the seeded thistle when in parle It holds the Zephyr, ere it sendeth fair Its light balloons into the summer air; Therto his beard had not begun to bloom, No brush had touch'd his chin or razor sheer; No care had touch'd his cheek with mortal doom, But new he was and bright as scarf from Persian loom.
Ne cared he for wine, or half-and-half
Ne cared he for fish or flesh or fowl,
And sauces held he worthless as the chaff;
He 'sdeigned the swine-head at the wassail-bowl;
Ne with lewd ribbalds sat he cheek by jowl;
Ne with sly Lemans in the scorner's chair;
But after water-brooks this Pilgrim's soul
Panted, and all his food was woodland air
Though he would oft-times feast on gilliflowers rare.
The slang of cities in no wise he knew,
Tipping the wink to him was heathen Greek;
He sipp'd no olden Tom or ruin blue,
Or nantz or cherry-brandy drank full meek
By many a damsel hoarse and rouge of cheek;
Nor did he know each aged watchman's beat,
Nor in obscured purlieus would he seek
For curled Jewesses, with ankles neat,
Who as they walk abroad make tinkling with their feet.
FROM A LETTER TO HIS SISTER
Two or three Posies
With two or three simples
Two or three Noses
With two or three pimples-
Two or three wise men
And two or three ninny's-
Two or three purses
And two or three guineas-
Two or three raps
At two or three doors-.
Two or three naps
Of two or three hours
Two or three Cats
And two or three mice-
Two or three sprats
20 The omission of Mrs. Abbey's name was probably a part of
Ан, what can ail thee, wretched wight,
Alone and palely loitering;
The sedge is wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing.
Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel's granary is full,
And the harvest's done.
I see a lilly on thy brow,
With anguish moist and fever dew;
And on thy cheek a fading rose
Fast withereth too.
I met a lady in the meads
Full beautiful, a faery's child;
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.
"La Belle Dame sans Merci" in its earliest known form was written into a journal-letter to George Keats and his wife in the latter half of April 1819, without any prelude, but with the heading—
Wednesday Evening
La belle dame sans merci
and written in a way that indicates fresh composition; for there are
many corrections. This version was first published by Mr. Colvin in
"Macmillan's Magazine" for August 1888.. A revised version was
published by Hunt in "The Indicator" on the 10th of May 1820. In Wood-
house's Common-place book is a transcript of the poem, which is probably the
source of the version printed by Lord Houghton among the Literary
Remains in 1848.
66
The Indicator "" version is here adopted in the text,
variations of more than ordinary interest being noted.
I and II 1 0 what can ail thee, Knight at arms Draft.
III I see death's lilly on thy brow
With anguish moist and fever dew
And on thy cheeks death's fading rose
Withereth too. Draft.
The word death's, however, is struck out in favour of a both in line 1 and in line 3; and Fast is put in before withereth in line 4.
IV In this stanza line 1 originally ended with Wilds (not Wolds as in "Macmillan's Magazine”) instead of Meads.
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