So, at home, the sick, tall, yellow Duchess
Was left with the infant in her clutches, 90
She being the daughter of God knows who:
And now was the time to revisit her tribe.
Abroad and afar they went, the two,
And let our people rail and gibe
At the empty hall and extinguished fire, 95
As loud as we liked, but ever in vain,
Till after long years we had our desire,
And back came the Duke and his mother again.
V
And he came back the pertest little ape
That ever affronted human shape; 100
Full of his travel, struck at himself.
You'd say he despised our bluff old ways?
--Not he! For in Paris they told the elf
Our rough North land was the Land of Lays,
The one good thing left in evil days; 105
Since the Mid-Age was the Heroic Time,
And only in wild nooks like ours
Could you taste of it yet as in its prime,
And see true castles, with proper towers,
Young-hearted women, old-minded men, 110
And manners now as manners were then.
So, all that the old Dukes had been, without knowing it,
This Duke would fain know he was, without being it;
'Twas not for the joy's self, but the joy of his showing it,
Nor for the pride's self, but the pride of our seeing it, 115
He revived all usages thoroughly worn-out,
The souls of them fumed-forth, the hearts of them torn-out:
And chief in the chase his neck he periled
On a lathy horse, all legs and length,
With blood for bone, all speed, no strength; 120
--They should have set him on red Berold
With the red eye slow consuming in fire,
And the thin stiff ear like an abbey-spire!