Page:Keats - Poetical Works, DeWolfe, 1884.djvu/318

302


 * 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.


 * 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 footman too,—

Dear mistress, let him have no handle against you!


 * 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."

"Hush!" quoth Coralline,
 * "Really you must not talk of him indeed."