Page:The complete poetical works and letters of John Keats, 1899.djvu/286

250 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,

'T is 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 fairies.

'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.

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 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—

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 NautzNantz [sic], or cherry-brandy, drunk full meek