XVII And nobody calls you a dunce, THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. YOU'RE my friend : I was the man the Duke spoke to; I helped the Duchess to cast off his yoke, too; So, here's the tale from beginning to end, II Ours is a great wild country: If you climb to our castle's top, I don't see where your eye can stop; For when you've passed the corn-field country, Where vineyards leave off, flocks are packed, And sheep-range leads to cattle-track, And cattle-track to open-chase, And open-chase to the very base O' the mountain where, at a funeral pace, Round about, solemn and slow, One by one, row after row, So, like black priests up, and so Down the other side again To another greater, wilder country, That's one vast red drear burnt-up plain, Branched through and through with many a vein, Whence iron's dug, and copper's dealt ; And forge and furnace mould and melt, Till at the last, for a bounding belt, Comes the salt sand hoar of the great sea-shore, -And the whole is our Duke's country. III I was born the day this present Duke was— And pin him true, both eyes betwixt ? And loved to have him ever in call ; And," quoth the Kaiser's courier, "since "The Duke has got an heir, our Prince "Needs the Duke's self at his side: " The Duke looked down and seemed to wince, And "ay," said the Duke with a surly pride. Petticoated like a herald, In a chamber next to an ante-room, Where he breathed the breath of page and groom, To flap each broad wing like a banner, And turn in the wind, and dance like flame!) Had they broached a cask of white beer from Berlin! -Or if you incline to prescribe mere wine Put to his lips when they saw him pine, A cup of our own Moldavia fine, Cotnar for instance, green as May sorrel And ropy with sweet,-we shall not quarrel. IV So, at home, the sick tall yellow Duchess She being the daughter of God knows who: At the empty hall and extinguished fire, Till after long years we had our desire, And back came the Duke and his mother again. V And he came back the pertest little ape You'd say, he depised our bluff old ways? That our rough North land was the Land of Lays, Since the Mid-Age was the Heroic Time, And only in wild nooks like ours Could you taste of it yet as in its prime, So, all that the old Dukes had been, without knowing it, The souls of them fumed-forth, the hearts of them torn out: And chief in the chase his neck he perilled, On a lathy horse, all legs and length, VI Well, such as he was, he must marry, we heard : Came the lady, in time of spring. -Oh, old thoughts they cling, they cling! Fit for the chase of urox or buffle In winter-time when you need to muffle. But the Duke had a mind we should cut a figure, And so we saw the lady arrive : My friend, I have seen a white crane bigger! She was the smallest lady alive, Made in a piece of nature's madness, Too small, almost, for the life and gladness That over-filled her, as some hive Out of the bears' reach on the high trees Is crowded with its safe merry bees: In truth, she was not hard to please! Up she looked, down she looked, round at the mead, To look at from outside the walls: As for us, styled the "serfs and thralls," She as much thanked me as if she had said it, (With her eyes, do you understand ?) Because I patted her horse while I led it ; And Max, who rode on her other hand, Said, no bird flew past but she inquired What its true name was, nor ever seemed tired If that was an eagle she saw hover, And the green and grey bird on the field was the plover. When suddenly appeared the Duke : And as down she sprung, the small foot pointed On to my hand,—as with a rebuke, And as if his backbone were not jointed, |