THE CAP AND BELLS

OR THE JEALOUSIES

A FAERY TALE-UNFINISHED

In midmost Ind, beside Hydaspes cool, There stood, or hover'd, tremulous in the air, A faery city, 'neath the potent rule Of Emperor Elfinan; fam'd ev'rywhere For love of mortal women, maidens fair, Whose lips were solid, whose soft hands were made Of a fit mould and beauty, ripe and rare, To pamper his slight wooing, warm yet staid : He lov'd girls smooth as shades, but hated a mere shade.

II.

This was a crime forbidden by the law;
And all the priesthood of his city wept,
For ruin and dismay they well foresaw,
If impious prince no bound or limit kept,
And faery Zendervester overstept;

They wept, he sin'd, and still he would sin on, They dreamt of sin, and he sin'd while they slept; In vain the pulpit thunder'd at the throne, Caricature was vain, and vain the tart lampoon.

III.

Which seeing, his high court of parliament
Laid a remonstrance at his Highness' feet,
Praying his royal senses to content

Themselves with what in faery land was sweet,
Befitting best that shade with shade should meet:
Whereat, to calm their fears, he promis'd soon
From mortal tempters all to make retreat,-
Aye, even on the first of the new moon,
An immaterial wife to espouse as heaven's boon.

IV.

Meantime he sent a fluttering embassy
To Pigmio, of Imaus sovereign,

To half beg, and half demand, respectfully,
The hand of his fair daughter Bellanaine ;

An audience had, and speeching done, they gain
Their point, and bring the weeping bride away;
Whom, with but one attendant, safely lain
Upon their wings, they bore in bright array,
While little harps were touch'd by many a lyric fay.

V.

As in old pictures tender cherubim

A child's soul thro' the sapphir'd canvas bear,
So, thro' a real heaven, on they swim

With the sweet princess on her plumag'd lair,
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.

VI.

"Dear Princess, do not whisper me so loud,"
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 foot-man too,

Dear mistress, let him have no handle against you!

VII.

"Show him a mouse's tail, and he will guess,

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

V 1-2 As in old Pictures Cherubs bear aloft
The souls of children Holograph, rejected.

"Peace!

The owner out of it; show him a"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.

VIII.

"Ah, beauteous mortal!" "Hush!" quoth Coralline,
"Really you must not talk of him, indeed."
"You hush!" replied the mistress, with a shine
Of anger in her eyes, enough to breed

In stouter hearts than nurse's fear and dread:
"Twas not the glance itself made nursey flinch,
But of its threat she took the utmost heed;
Not liking in her heart an hour-long pinch,
Or a sharp needle run into her back an inch.

IX.

So she was silenc'd, and fair Bellanaine,
Writhing her little body with ennui,
Continued to lament and to complain,

That Fate, cross-purposing, should let her be
Ravish'd away far from her dear countree;
That all her feelings should be set at naught,
In trumping up this match so hastily,

With lowland blood; and lowland blood she thought Poison, as every staunch true-born Imaian ought.

X.

Sorely she griev'd, 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 fam'd memoirs of a thousand years, Written by Crafticant, and published By Parpaglion and Co., (those sly compeers Who rak'd 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 lov'd 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 liv'd 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 curs'd 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, empierc'd 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 a 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 speech has 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?

KEATS

XVIII 9 Biancopany Whitbread.
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