They rang--no one at home--all gone to sport
And dance and kiss and love as faerys do
For Faries be as humans lovers true.
Amid the woods they were so lone and wild,
Where even the Robin feels himself exil'd,
And where the very brooks, as if afraid,
Hurry along to some less magic shade.
'No one at home!' the fretful princess cry'd;
'And all for nothing such a dreary ride,
And all for nothing my new diamond cross;
No one to see my Persian feathers toss,
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
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 boudoir--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 to-morrow.'
While the Dwarf spake the Princess, all for spite,
Peel'd 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,
A-quavering like the reeds before the wind--
And they had had it, but O happy chance
The Ape for very fear began to dance
And grinn'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-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 their 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 fairies.
'My darling Ape I won't whip you to-day,
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 lingering by did the sad Ape forth draw
The Picklock from the Pocket in his Jaw.
The Princess took it, and dismounting straight
Tripp'd in blue silver'd slippers to the gate
And touch'd the wards, the Door full courteously
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.
Canto the XIII.
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 Otaheite--tho' a Mule,
Aye, every inch a King'--tho' 'Fortune's fool,'
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 rubb'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 Monkies down would creep
And filch the unpleasant trammels quite away.
No sooner thought of than adown he lay,
Shamm'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 off he went run, trot, or anyhow--
Brown is gone to bed--and I am tired of rhyming--there is a north wind
blowing playing young gooseberry with the trees--I don't care so it helps
even with a side wind a Letter to me--for I cannot put faith in any
reports I hear of the Settlement; some are good and some bad. Last
Sunday I took a Walk towards Highgate and in the lane that winds by the
side of Lord Mansfield's park I met Mr. Green our Demonstrator at
Guy's in conversation with Coleridge--I joined them, after enquiring
by a look whether it would be agreeable--I walked with him at his
alderman-after-dinner pace for near two miles I suppose. In those two
Miles he broached a thousand things--let me see if I can give you a
list--Nightingales--Poetry--on Poetical Sensation--Metaphysics--Different
genera and species of Dreams--Nightmare--a dream accompanied by a sense of
touch--single and double touch--a dream related--First and second
consciousness--the difference explained between will and Volition--so say
metaphysicians from a want of smoking the second consciousness--Monsters--
the Kraken--Mermaids--Southey believes in them--Southey's belief too much
diluted--a Ghost story--Good morning--I heard his voice as he came towards
me--I heard it as he moved away--I had heard it all the interval--if it
may be called so. He was civil enough to ask me to call on him at
Highgate. Good-night!
[Later, April 16 or 17.]
It looks so much like rain I shall not go to town to-day: but put it off
till to-morrow. Brown this morning is writing some Spenserian stanzas
against Mrs., Miss Brawne and me; so I shall amuse myself with him a
little: in the manner of Spenser--
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
Thereto 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 'sdeign'd the swineherd 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 ofttimes 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 drunk 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.
This character would ensure him a situation in the establishment of
patient Griselda. The servant has come for the little Browns this
morning--they have been a toothache to me which I shall enjoy the riddance
of--Their little voices are like wasps' stings--Sometimes am I all wound
with Browns.[97] We had a claret feast some little while ago. There were
Dilke, Reynolds, Skinner, Mancur, John Brown, Martin, Brown and I. We all
got a little tipsy--but pleasantly so--I enjoy Claret to a degree.
[Later, April 18 or 19.]
I have been looking over the correspondence of the pretended Amena and
Wells this evening--I now see the whole cruel deception. I think Wells
must have had an accomplice in it--Amena's letters are in a Man's language
and in a Man's hand imitating a woman's. The instigations to this
diabolical scheme were vanity, and the love of intrigue. It was no
thoughtless hoax--but a cruel deception on a sanguine Temperament, with
every show of friendship. I do not think death too bad for the villain.
The world would look upon it in a different light should I expose
it--they would call it a frolic--so I must be wary--but I consider it my
duty to be prudently revengeful. I will hang over his head like a sword by
a hair. I will be opium to his vanity--if I cannot injure his
interests--He is a rat and he shall have ratsbane to his vanity--I will
harm him all I possibly can--I have no doubt I shall be able to do so--Let
us leave him to his misery alone, except when we can throw in a little
more. The fifth canto of Dante pleases me more and more--it is that one in
which he meets with Paolo and Francesca. I had passed many days in rather
a low state of mind, and in the midst of them I dreamt of being in that
region of Hell. The dream was one of the most delightful enjoyments I ever
had in my life. I floated about the whirling atmosphere, as it is
described, with a beautiful figure, to whose lips mine were joined as it
seemed for an age--and in the midst of all this cold and darkness I was
warm--even flowery tree-tops sprung up, and we rested on them, sometimes
with the lightness of a cloud, till the wind blew us away again. I tried a
sonnet upon it--there are fourteen lines, but nothing of what I felt in
it--O that I could dream it every night--
As Hermes once took to his feathers light
When lulled Argus, baffled, swoon'd and slept,
So on a delphic reed my idle spright
So play'd, so charm'd, so conquer'd, so bereft
The Dragon world of all its hundred eyes;
And seeing it asleep, so fled away;--
Not to pure Ida with its snow-cold skies,
Nor unto Tempe where Jove grieved that day;
But to that second circle of sad Hell
Where in the gust, the whirlwind, and the flaw
Of Rain and hailstones, lovers need not tell
Their sorrows. Pale were the sweet lips I saw,
Pale were the lips I kiss'd, and fair the form
I floated with about that melancholy storm.
I want very very much a little of your wit, my dear Sister--a Letter or
two of yours just to bandy back a pun or two across the Atlantic, and send
a quibble over the Floridas. Now you have by this time crumpled up your
large Bonnet, what do you wear--a cap? do you put your hair in papers of a
night? do you pay the Miss Birkbecks a morning visit--have you any tea? or
do you milk-and-water with them--What place of Worship do you go to--the
Quakers, the Moravians, the Unitarians, or the Methodists? Are there any
flowers in bloom you like--any beautiful heaths--any streets full of
Corset Makers? What sort of shoes have you to fit those pretty feet of
yours? Do you desire Compliments to one another? Do you ride on Horseback?
What do you have for breakfast, dinner, and supper? without mentioning
lunch and bever,[98] and wet and snack--and a bit to stay one's stomach?
Do you get any Spirits--now you might easily distill some whiskey--and
going into the woods, set up a whiskey shop for the Monkeys--Do you and
the Miss Birkbecks get groggy on anything--a little so-soish so as to be
obliged to be seen home with a Lantern? You may perhaps have a game at
puss in the corner--Ladies are warranted to play at this game though they
have not whiskers. Have you a fiddle in the Settlement--or at any rate a
Jew's harp--which will play in spite of one's teeth--When you have nothing
else to do for a whole day I tell you how you may employ it--First get up
and when you are dressed, as it would be pretty early with a high wind in
the woods, give George a cold Pig with my Compliments. Then you may
saunter into the nearest coffee-house, and after taking a dram and a look
at the Chronicle--go and frighten the wild boars upon the strength--you
may as well bring one home for breakfast, serving up the hoofs garnished
with bristles and a grunt or two to accompany the singing of the
kettle--then if George is not up give him a colder Pig always with my
Compliments--When you are both set down to breakfast I advise you to eat
your full share, but leave off immediately on feeling yourself inclined
to anything on the other side of the puffy--avoid that, for it does not
become young women--After you have eaten your breakfast keep your eye upon
dinner--it is the safest way--You should keep a Hawk's eye over your
dinner and keep hovering over it till due time then pounce taking care not
to break any plates. While you are hovering with your dinner in prospect
you may do a thousand things--put a hedgehog into George's hat--pour a
little water into his rifle--soak his boots in a pail of water--cut his
jacket round into shreds like a Roman kilt or the back of my grandmother's
stays--Sew _off_ his buttons--
[Later, April 21 or 22.]
Yesterday I could not write a line I was so fatigued, for the day before I
went to town in the morning, called on your Mother, and returned in time
for a few friends we had to dinner. These were Taylor, Woodhouse,
Reynolds: we began cards at about 9 o'clock, and the night coming on, and
continuing dark and rainy, they could not think of returning to town--So
we played at Cards till very daylight--and yesterday I was not worth a
sixpence. Your Mother was very well but anxious for a Letter. We had half
an hour's talk and no more, for I was obliged to be home. Mrs. and Miss
Millar were well, and so was Miss Waldegrave. I have asked your Brothers
here for next Sunday. When Reynolds was here on Monday he asked me to give
Hunt a hint to take notice of his Peter Bell in the Examiner--the best
thing I can do is to write a little notice of it myself, which I will do
here, and copy out if it should suit my Purpose--
_Peter Bell._ There have been lately advertised two Books both Peter Bell
by name; what stuff the one was made of might be seen by the motto--"I am
the real Simon Pure." This false Florimel has hurried from the press and
obtruded herself into public notice, while for aught we know the real one
may be still wandering about the woods and mountains. Let us hope she may
soon appear and make good her right to the magic girdle. The
Pamphleteering Archimage, we can perceive, has rather a splenetic love
than a downright hatred to real Florimels--if indeed they had been so
christened--or had even a pretention to play at bob cherry with Barbara
Lewthwaite: but he has a fixed aversion to those three rhyming Graces
Alice Fell, Susan Gale and Betty Foy; and now at length especially to
Peter Bell--fit Apollo. It may be seen from one or two Passages in this
little skit, that the writer of it has felt the finer parts of Mr.
Wordsworth, and perhaps expatiated with his more remote and sublimer muse.
This as far as it relates to Peter Bell is unlucky. The more he may love
the sad embroidery of the Excursion, the more he will hate the coarse
Samplers of Betty Foy and Alice Fell; and as they come from the same hand,
the better will he be able to imitate that which can be imitated, to wit
Peter Bell--as far as can be imagined from the obstinate Name. We repeat,
it is very unlucky--this real Simon Pure is in parts the very Man--there
is a pernicious likeness in the scenery, a 'pestilent humour' in the
rhymes, and an inveterate cadence in some of the Stanzas, that must be
lamented. If we are one part amused with this we are three parts sorry
that an appreciator of Wordsworth should show so much temper at this
really provoking name of Peter Bell--![99]
This will do well enough--I have copied it and enclosed it to Hunt. You
will call it a little politic--seeing I keep clear of all parties. I say
something for and against both parties--and suit it to the tune of the
Examiner--I meant to say I do not unsuit it--and I believe I think what I
say, nay I am sure I do--I and my conscience are in luck to-day--which is
an excellent thing. The other night I went to the Play with Rice,
Reynolds, and Martin--we saw a new dull and half-damn'd opera call'd the
'Heart of Midlothian,' that was on Saturday--I stopt at Taylor's on
Sunday with Woodhouse--and passed a quiet sort of pleasant day. I have
been very much pleased with the Panorama of the Ship at the North
Pole--with the icebergs, the Mountains, the Bears, the Wolves--the seals,
the Penguins--and a large whale floating back above water--it is
impossible to describe the place--
Wednesday Evening [April 28].
LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI
O what can ail thee Knight at arms
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the Lake
And no birds sing!
O what can ail thee Knight at arms
So haggard, and so woe-begone?
The squirrel's granary is full
And the harvest's done.
I see a lily 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--
I made a Garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant Zone
She look'd at me as she did love
And made sweet moan--
I set her on my pacing steed
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend and sing
A faery's song--
She found me roots of relish sweet
And honey wild and manna dew
And sure in language strange she said
I love thee true--
She took me to her elfin grot
And there she wept and sigh'd full sore,
And there I shut her wild, wild eyes
With kisses four--
And there she lulled me asleep,
And there I dream'd Ah Woe betide!
The latest dream I ever dreamt
On the cold hill side.
I saw pale Kings and Princes too
Pale warriors death-pale were they all
They cried--La belle dame sans merci
Thee hath in thrall.
I saw their starv'd lips in the gloam
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke, and found me here
On the cold hill's side.
And this is why I sojourn here
Alone and palely loitering;
Though the sedge is withered from the Lake
And no birds sing.[100]...
Why four kisses--you will say--why four, because I wish to restrain the
headlong impetuosity of my Muse--she would have fain said "score" without
hurting the rhyme--but we must temper the Imagination, as the Critics say,
with Judgment. I was obliged to choose an even number, that both eyes
might have fair play, and to speak truly I think two a piece quite
sufficient. Suppose I had said seven there would have been three and a
half a piece--a very awkward affair, and well got out of on my side--
[Later.]
CHORUS OF FAIRIES. 4--FIRE, AIR, EARTH, AND WATER--SALAMANDER, ZEPHYR,
DUSKETHA, BREAMA.
_Sal._ Happy happy glowing fire!
_Zep._ Fragrant air, delicious light!
_Dusk._ Let me to my glooms retire.
_Bream._ I to greenweed rivers bright.
_Salam._
Happy, happy glowing fire!
Dazzling bowers of soft retire,
Ever let my nourish'd wing,
Like a bat's still wandering,
Faintly fan your fiery spaces
Spirit sole in deadly places,
In unhaunted roar and blaze
Open eyes that never daze
Let me see the myriad shapes
Of Men and Beasts and Fish and apes,
Portray'd in many a fiery den,
And wrought by spumy bitumen
On the deep intenser roof,
Arched every way aloof.
Let me breathe upon my skies,
And anger their live tapestries;
Free from cold and every care,
Of chilly rain and shivering air.
_Zephyr._
Spright of fire--away away!
Or your very roundelay
Will sear my plumage newly budded
From its quilled sheath and studded
With the self-same dews that fell
On the May-grown Asphodel.
Spright of fire away away!
_Breama._
Spright of fire away away!
Zephyr blue-eyed faery turn,
And see my cool sedge-shaded urn,
Where it rests its mossy brim
Mid water-mint and cresses dim;
And the flowers, in sweet troubles,
Lift their eyes above the bubbles,
Like our Queen when she would please
To sleep, and Oberon will tease--
Love me blue-eyed Faery true
Soothly I am sick for you.
_Zephyr._
Gentle Breama! by the first
Violet young nature nurst,
I will bathe myself with thee,
So you sometime follow me
To my home far far in west,
Far beyond the search and quest
Of the golden-browed sun.
Come with me, o'er tops of trees,
To my fragrant Palaces,
Where they ever-floating are
Beneath the cherish of a star
Call'd Vesper--who with silver veil
Ever Hides his brilliance pale,
Ever gently drows'd doth keep
Twilight of the Fays to sleep.
Fear not that your watery hair
Will thirst in drouthy ringlets there--
Clouds of stored summer rains
Thou shalt taste before the stains
Of the mountain soil they take,
And too unlucent for thee make.
I love thee, Crystal faery true
Sooth I am as sick for you--
_Salam._
Out ye agueish Faeries out!
Chilly Lovers, what a rout
Keep ye with your frozen breath
Colder than the mortal death--
Adder-eyed Dusketha speak,
Shall we leave them and go seek
In the Earth's wide Entrails old
Couches warm as their's is cold?
O for a fiery gloom and thee,
Dusketha, so enchantingly
Freckle-wing'd and lizard-sided!
_Dusketha._
By thee Spright will I be guided
I care not for cold or heat
Frost and Flame or sparks or sleet
To my essence are the same--
But I honour more the flame--
Spright of fire I follow thee
Wheresoever it may be;
To the torrid spouts and fountains,
Underneath earth-quaked mountains
Or at thy supreme desire,
Touch the very pulse of fire
With my bare unlidded eyes.
_Salam._
Sweet Dusketha! Paradise!
Off ye icy Spirits fly!
Frosty creatures of the Sky!
_Dusketha._
Breathe upon them fiery Spright!
_Zephyr, Breama (to each other)._
Away Away to our delight!
_Salam._
Go feed on icicles while we
Bedded in tongued-flames will be.
_Dusketha._
Lead me to those fev'rous glooms,
Spright of fire--
_Breama._
Me to the blooms
Blue-eyed Zephyr of those flowers
Far in the west where the May cloud lours;
And the beams of still Vesper, where winds are all whist
Are shed through the rain and the milder mist,
And twilight your floating bowers--