THE IDYLL OF THE CARP

(The SCENE is in a garden,—where you please,
So that it lie in France, and have withal
Its gray-stoned pond beneath the arching trees,
And Triton huge, with moss for coronal.
A PRINCESS,-feeding fish. To her DENISE.)

THE PRINCESS.

HESE, DENISE, are my Suitors!

DENISE.

THES

THE PRINCESS.

Where?

These fish.

I feed them daily here at morn and night
With crumbs of favour,-scraps of graciousness,
Not meant, indeed, to mean the thing they wish,
But serving just to edge an appetite.

(Throwing bread.)

Make haste, Messieurs! Make haste, then! Hurry. See,—

See how they swim!

Would you not say,

confess,

Some crowd of Courtiers in the audience hall,

When the King comes?

DENISE.

You're jesting!

249

THE PRINCESS.

Not at all.

Watch but the great one yonder! There's the Duke ;

Those gill-marks mean his Order of St. Luke; Those old skin-stains his boasted quarterings. Look what a swirl and roll of tide he brings; Have you not marked him thus, with crest in air, Breathing disdain, descend the palace-stair? You surely have, DENISE

DENISE.

I think I have.

But there's another, older and more grave,The one that wears the round patch on the

throat,

And swims with such slow fins. Is he of note?

THE PRINCESS.

Why that's my good chambellan—with his seal. A kind old man !-he carves me orange-peel

In quaint devices at refection-hours, Equips my sweet-pouch, brings me morning flowers,

D 3

Or chirrups madrigals with old, sweet words, Such as men loved when people wooed like birds

And spoke the true note first. No suitor he, Yet loves me too,-though in a graybeard's key.

DENISE.

Look, Madam, look !—a fish without a stain ! O speckless, fleckless fish! Who is it, pray, That bears him so discreetly?

THE PRINCESS.

FONTENAY. You know him not? My prince of shining locks!

My pearl !-my Phoenix !-my pomander-box!
He loves not Me, alas! The man's too vain !
He loves his doublet better than my suit,-
His graces than my favours. Still his sash
Sits not amiss, and he can touch the lute
Not wholly out of tune-

DENISE.

Ai! what a splash !

Who is it comes with such a sudden dash Plump i' the midst, and leaps the others clear?

THE PRINCESS.

Ho! for a trumpet! Let the bells be rung!
Baron of Sans-terre, Lord of Prés-en-Cieux,
Vidame of Vol-au-Vent-" et aultres lieux!"
Bah! How I hate his Gasconading tongue!
Why, that's my bragging Bravo-Musketeer-
My carpet cut-throat, valiant by a scar
Got in a brawl that stands for Spanish war :-
His very life's a splash!

DENISE.

I'd rather wear

E'en such a pinched and melancholy air, that motley one, who keeps the

As his, wall,

And hugs his own lean thoughts for carnival.

THE PRINCESS.

My frankest wooer! Thus his love he telis
To mournful moving of his cap and bells.
He loves me (so he saith) as Slaves the
Free,-

As Cowards War,-as young Maids Constancy.
Item, he loves me as the Hawk the Dove;
He loves me as the Inquisition Thought!-

DENISE.

"He loves?-he loves?" Why all this loving's

naught !

THE PRINCESS.

And "Naught (quoth JACQUOT) makes the sum of Love!"

DENISE.

The cynic knave ! How call you this one

here?

This small shy-looking fish, that hovers near,
And circles, like a cat around a cage,
To snatch the surplus.

THE PRINCESS.

CHERUBIN, the page.

'Tis but a child, yet with that roguish smile, And those sly looks, the child will make hearts ache

Not five years hence, I prophesy. Meanwhile,
He lives to plague the swans upon the lake,
To steal my comfits, and the monkey's cake.