The complete poetical works and letters of John Keats/A Little Extempore
A Little Extempore
Inclosed in a letter to George and Georgiana Keats, written April 15, 1819.
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 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 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,
'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.
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 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—