Poetry, John Keats [grave mercy .txt] 📗
- Author: John Keats
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And a sad ditty of this story born
From mouth to mouth through all the country pass’d:
Still is the burthen sung—“O cruelty,
To steal my Basil-pot away from me!” An Extempore Canto the XII
When they were come into the Faery’s Court
They rang—no one at home—all gone to sport
And dance and kiss and love as faeries do
For Faeries 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 Faeryland?
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.
Yon 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 lily 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 faeries.
“My darling Ape, I wont 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 courteous
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.
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 Monkeys 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—
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;
There to his beard had not begun to bloom,
No brush had touch’d his chin, or razor sheer;
No care had touched 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’s deigned 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 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, 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.
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
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