Poison, as every stanch true-born Imaian ought.
X
Sorely she grieved, and wetted three or four
White Provence rose-leaves with her faery tears,
But not for this cause;—alas! she had more
Bad reasons for her sorrow, as appears
In the famed memoirs of a thousand years,
Written by Crafticant, and published
By Parpaglion and Co., (those sly compeers
Who raked up ev’ry fact against the dead,)
In Scarab Street, Panthea, at the Jubal’s Head.
XI
Where, after a long hypercritic howl
Against the vicious manners of the age,
He goes on to expose, with heart and soul,
What vice in this or that year was the rage,
Backbiting all the world in every page;
With special strictures on the horrid crime,
(Section’d and subsection’d with learning sage,)
Of faeries stooping on their wings sublime
To kiss a mortal’s lips, when such were in their prime.
XII
Turn to the copious index, you will find
Somewhere in the column, headed letter B,
The name of Bellanaine, if you’re not blind;
Then pray refer to the text, and you will see
An article made up of calumny
Against this highland princess, rating her
For giving way, so over fashionably,
To this new-fangled vice, which seems a burr
Stuck in his moral throat, no coughing e’er could stir.
XIII
There he says plainly that she loved a man!
That she around him flutter’d, flirted, toy’d,
Before her marriage with great Elfinan;
That after marriage too, she never joy’d
In husband’s company, but still employ’d
Her wits to ’scape away to Angle-land;
Where lived the youth, who worried and annoy’d
Her tender heart, and its warm ardours fann’d
To such a dreadful blaze, her side would scorch her hand.
XIV
But let us leave this idle tittle-tattle
To waiting-maids, and bed-room coteries,
Nor till fit time against her fame wage battle.
Poor Elfinan is very ill at ease,
Let us resume his subject if you please:
For it may comfort and console him much,
To rhyme and syllable his miseries;
Poor Elfinan! whose cruel fate was such,
He sat and cursed a bride he knew he could not touch.
XV
Soon as (according to his promises)
The bridal embassy had taken wing,
And vanish’d, bird-like, o’er the suburb trees,
The emperor, empierced with the sharp sting
Of love, retired, vex’d and murmuring
Like any drone shut from the fair bee-queen,
Into his cabinet, and there did fling
His limbs upon the sofa, full of spleen,
And damn’d his House of Commons, in complete chagrin.
XVI
“I’ll trounce some of the members,” cried the Prince,
“I’ll put a mark against some rebel names,
I’ll make the Opposition-benches wince,
I’ll show them very soon, to all their shames,
What ’tis to smother up a Prince’s flames;
That ministers should join in it, I own,
Surprises me!—they too at these high games!
Am I an Emperor? Do I wear a crown?
Imperial Elfinan, go hang thyself or drown!
XVII
“I’ll trounce ’em!—there’s the square-cut chancellor,
His son shall never touch that bishopric;
And for the nephew of old Palfior,
I’ll show him that his speeches made me sick,
And give the colonelcy to Phalaric;
The tiptoe marquis, moral and gallant,
Shall lodge in shabby taverns upon tick;
And for the Speaker’s second cousin’s aunt,
She sha’n’t be maid of honour,—by heaven that she sha’n’t!
XVIII
“I’ll shirk the Duke of A.; I’ll cut his brother;
I’ll give no garter to his eldest son;
I won’t speak to his sister or his mother!
The Viscount B. shall live at cut-and-run;
But how in the world can I contrive to stun
That fellow’s voice, which plagues me worse than any,
That stubborn fool, that impudent state-dun,
Who sets down ev’ry sovereign as a zany,—
That vulgar commoner, Esquire Biancopany?
XIX
“Monstrous affair! Pshaw! pah! what ugly minx
Will they fetch from Imaus for my bride?
Alas! my wearied heart within me sinks,
To think that I must be so near allied
To a cold dullard fay,—ah, woe betide!
Ah, fairest of all human loveliness!
Sweet Bertha! what crime can it be to glide
About the fragrant plaitings of thy dress,
Or kiss thine eye, or count thy locks, tress after tress?”
XX
So said, one minute’s while his eyes remain’d
Half lidded, piteous, languid, innocent;
But, in a wink, their splendour they regain’d,
Sparkling revenge with amorous fury blent.
Love thwarted in bad temper oft has vent:
He rose, he stampt his foot, he rang the bell,
And order’d some death-warrants to be sent
For signature:—somewhere the tempest fell,
As many a poor fellow does not live to tell.
XXI
“At the same time, Eban,”—(this was his page,
A fay of colour, slave from top to toe,
Sent as a present, while yet under age,
From the Viceroy of Zanguebar,—wise, slow,
His speech, his only words were “yes” and “no,”
But swift of look, and foot, and wing was he,)—
“At the same time, Eban, this instant go
To Hum the soothsayer, whose name I see
Among the fresh arrivals in our empery.
XXII
“Bring Hum to me! But stay—here take my ring,
The pledge of favour, that he not suspect
Any foul play, or awkward murdering
Tho’ I have bowstrung many of his sect;
Throw in a hint, that if he should neglect
One hour the next shall see him in my grasp,
And the next after that shall see him neck’d,
Or swallow’d by my hunger-starved asp,—
And mention (’tis as well) the torture of the wasp.”
XXIII
These orders given, the Prince, in half a pet,
Let o’er the silk his propping elbow slide,
Caught up his little legs, and, in a fret,
Fell on the sofa on his royal side,
The slave retreated backwards, humble-eyed,
And with a slave-like silence closed the door,
And to old Hum thro’ street and alley hied;
He
