THE SLEEPING BEAUTY.
IN that strange region, dim and grey,
Which lies so very far away,
Whose chronicles in prose or rhyme
Are dated "Once upon a time,"
There was a land where silence reigned
So deep,—the ear it almost pained
To hear the gnat's shrill clarion blow,—
Though he Sleep's herald is we know.
Scarce would you deem that calm profound,
Unbroken by the ghost of sound,
Had, like a sudden curtain, dropt
Upon a revel, instant stopt,—
That laugh and shout and merry rout
And hunting song had all died out,
Stricken to silence at a touch—
A single touch! It was not much!
I 'll tell you how it came about.
What bevies of pages
Of various ages
Princess Prettipet's christening banquet engages!
They all look as deeply important as sages.
What hundreds of cooks!
To judge by their looks,
They had written the very profoundest of books.
(Of course, books like those by Hobbes, Bacon, or Hooker I
Mean—not mere Kitchener's Essays on Cookery.)
As to the cartes,
From the soups to the tarts,
'T would need to detail them a man of some parts;
While to eat of each item—
To taste—just to bite 'em,
The veracious voracious will own would affright 'em.
If you want to find out
The amount, or about,
Of the salmon, beef, partridges, lobsters, sourcrout,
Maccaroni, potatoes, cream, cutlets, ice, trout,
Lamb, blanc-mange, kippered herring, duck, brocoli sprout,
Sheep's trotters, real turtle, tripe, truffles, swine's snout,
Sole au gratin, snails, birds' nests, Dutch cheese, whiting-pout,
Jelly, plovers' eggs, bitters, liqueurs, ale, wine, stout,
Peas, cheese, fricassées, and ragoût—(say ragout
For the sake of the rhyme)—
And have plenty of time,
And a knowledge of figures (which I call a crime),
Because it's a feat that would puzzle beginners—
Make out and declare
The cube of the square,
Of twice twenty thousand of Lord Mayor's grand dinners.
#####
The invited guests begin to arrive:
With nobles and courtiers the scene is alive.
They hustle,
And bustle,
In rich dresses rustle;
The squeeze for good places is almost a tussle;
Precedence depends not on birth, but on muscle.
But they're none of them able
To reach the high table,
For the grave Major-Domo, perceiving the Babel,
A sufficient space clears
With the King's Musqueteers,
Because he well knows it will cost him his ears
If—when the time comes for the soups and the meats—
The twelve fairy godmothers cannot find seats.
At last there's a bray
Of trumpets, to say
That His Majesty's Majesty's coming this way,
With his Ministers all in their gorgeous array,
And the Lords of his Council, a noble display,
And the Queen, who's as beauteous as blossoms in May,
With her Ladies in Waiting so smiling and gay,
With a great many more
I might briefly run o'er
If at pageants like this I were only au fait.
The glittering procession
Makes stately progression
To the seats that the Musqueteers hold in possession
At the top of the hall;
While the visitors all
Are crowded to death, though the place is not small,
But from wall unto wall
Crammed with short folks and tall,
Who, as chances befall,
And in various degrees
They suffer the squeeze,
bawl, brawl, haul, maul, squall, call, fall, crawl, and sprawl
The King's looking pleasant,
Expecting a present—
Say knives, forks, and spoons that cost many a bezant—
For his daughter and heiress
From each of the fairies;
(A fay for a sponsor in these days quite rare is!)
But fairies, we' know,
Have gifts to bestow
More precious than silver and gold ones—and so
One gives the babe beauty,
Another gives health,
This a strong sense of duty,
That plenty of wealth.
Five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten
Add their presents, but when
Eleven have endowed her, the last of the dozen
Says, "I really don't know what to give her, dear cousin
(Addressing the Queen,)
"But the courses between
I shall hit upon something. I will not be mean;
So pray take your seats, for I'm not such a sinner
As, while I am thinking, to keep you from dinner!"
The King has taken the highest place,
Beside him the Queen in her diamonds and lace.
Each fairy godmother
Sits down by another,
And my lord the Archbishop is just saying grace,
When in comes a cook, with a very white face,
Who cries, as he straight up the hall rushes nimbly,
"Please your Majesty, somebody's fell down the chimbley!
There's silence in the hall
For half a minute,
And not a word doth fall
From those within it;
When, lo!—No!—And yet it is so!
The sound of a foot comes heavy and slow
Up the staircase from down below;
And a figure ill-grown,
Unattended, alone,
Walks straight through the guests to the foot of the throne,
And then with a squeak
Rising into a shriek,
And eyes that with fury are terribly glistening,
Cries, "Pray, sir, why was not I asked to the christening?"
'T was old Fairy Spite,
Whom they did not invite,
Because of her manners, which were not polite.
She led a bad life,
Was addicted to strife,
And besides—worst of all—she ate peas with a knife!
But 'twas really no joke
Her wrath to provoke.
So in hopes to appease her His Majesty spoke,
And said, sore affrighted,
"They both were delighted
To see her that day—
Quite charmed—in fact, they
Couldn't think how it was she had not been invited!
Shrieked Spite, "Silence, gaby!
Let's look at the baby."
The Queen, in a tremble,
Her fears to dissemble,
Said, Here is the darling—papa she'll resemble.
You'd like, p'rhaps, to take her,
But please not to wake her,
She sleeps." "Sleeps!" said Spite, "does she really? I 'll make her
Of sleep, ma'am, have plenty"
(Here—"Chorus "Attente!")*
"If she touches a spindle before she is twenty!
"For if she does, a heavy sleep
Shall over all your palace creep,
And you, with your whole court, shall keep
Buried in leaden fetters deep!"
"Until"—here Fairy Number Twelve,
Who, as we know, was forced to shelve
Her gift because the banquet waited,
Broke in and capped what Spite had stated—
"Until a prince shall come to wake
The Sleeping Beauty, and so break
The spell wherewith old Spite in vain
Would her young life for aye enchain!"
#####
The King sent heralds through the land
Proclaiming spindles contraband,
Pronouncing penalties and pains
'Gainst distaffs, treadles, rocks, and skeins.
And so to spin
Became a sin;
Wheels were bowled out, and looms came in.
No more old women were allowed to meddle
With wheel or treadle;
There were no spinsters left, the fair deceivers
All became weavers;
* The passage I quote in this wild dithyramb you'll
assuredly find in Act I. of "Sonnambula."
The very name and uses of a spindle
To nought did dwindle;
The fashion was, folks said,
Entirely dead,
Expired—past human effort to re-kindle.
Time's wonted pace
Is not a rapid race;
His motto seems to be "Festina lente."
But yet he passed away,
Until at length the day—
Approached on which the Princess would be twenty.
What consultations!
What preparations!
What busy times for people of all stations!
What scouring out of rooms
With mops and brooms!
What scouring to and fro of hurried grooms!
No leisure, not the least,
For man or beast,
Because His Majesty had fixed a feast—
Acres of eatables and seas of ale,
A banquet that should make all others pale,
E'en those of Heliogabalus, deceased—
To celebrate the day his child was quite
Beyond the malice of old Fairy Spite!
It was a scene of bustle and intrusion,
And vast profusion—
Such game, and meat, and fish, and rare confections!
The tables and the chairs
Down- and up-stairs
Were packed away—piled up in all directions,
In chaos, which the master of a house
Whose want of nous
Is such that he allows his wife a soirée,
Discovers round him, when tired out and sorry,
He fain would sleep, but cannot for the din doze—
In short, that plague, "a house turned out of windows."
No wonder the Princess, so meek and quiet,
Should run away from all the dust and riot.
No wonder, I repeat,
When all the suite,
From the Great Seal to her who made the beds,
Were hardly sure if they were on their heads,
Or on their feet!
No wonder the Princess—no soul aware,
Even of those who had her in their care—
Stole from her room, and up a winding stair,
Up to the highest turret's tipmost top,
Without or let or stop,
Went to enjoy the scenery and air!
In a room at the top of the tower that day
Merrily, merrily turned the wheel!
An old dame span, with never a stay,
Merrily, merrily turned the wheel!
The wool was as white as the driven snow,
Merrily, merrily turned the wheel!
And she sang, "Merrily, merrily, oh!
Merrily turn the wheel!"
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The Princess looked in at the door and said—
Merrily, merrily turned the wheel!—
"What bonny white wool, and what bonny white thread!"
Merrily, merrily turned the wheel!
"Come hither, then, fair one, and make the wheel go!"
Merrily, merrily turned the wheel!
Said ugly old Spite, who sang, "Merrily, oh!
Merrily turn the wheel!"
She turns the wheel and wakes its busy hum,
She twists the white wool with her whiter fingers;
She hears them call her, but she will not come:
Charmed with the toy, in that small room she lingers.
The wheel runs swiftly and the distaff's full,
She takes the spindle—heedless of who calls her.
Two tiny drops of blood fall on the wool,
And all that cruel Spite foretold befalls her!
On one and all
Did sudden slumber fall!
The steed that in the palace courtyard cropt—
The very bird upon the roof that hopt—
The cook who mincemeat for the banquet chopt—?
The gardener who the fruit tree's branches lopt—
The huntsman who his beaded forehead mopt—
The gay young lover who the question popt—
The damsel who thereat her eyelids dropt—
The councillor who fain the state had propt—
The King, his measures anxious to adopt—
The courtier in his new court suit be-fopt—
The toper who his beak in Rhenish sopt—
The scullion wiping up the sauce he slopt—
The chamberlain, as wise as ancient Copt—
The purblind peer who'd in the fountain flopt—
The jester who that fall with mirth had topt—
Stopt!
And over all there came a change;
A silence terrible and strange
Enwrapt the place:
While thickets dense of thorn and brier
Grew round it till the topmost spire
They did efface.
And only agéd crones came nigh
To gather sticks; or, passing by,
Some huntsman bold,
Spying a tower, would ask its tale,
And by the shepherds scared and pale
Would then be told—
How many a prince of noble blood
Had striven to penetrate the wood,
And reach the keep
Where that Princess so passing fair,
With King and Queen and courtiers there,
Lay wrapt in sleep.
But how none ever yet could make
A path through that thick-tangled brake—
And none came back,
But perished miserably there,
And left their bones all bleached and bare
In that dark track!
It was a solemn place, I ween,
Wrapt in its shroud of sombre green,
So hushed and still;
The fall of every leaf you heard,
Nor was there in its shades a bird
To cheep and trill.
No cricket chirped beneath the hedge—
No reed-wren rustled in the sedge—
No skylark soared;
Only at times, where round the keep
Did thickest snaky ivies creep,
A grey owl snored.
The sunlight slumbered on the wall;
The trancéd shadow did not crawl,
Or scarcely crept;
Dreaming the white lake-lilies lay
Above their image, still as they;
The hushed wave slept;
Like hermits dozing in their cells,
Drowsed in the drooping blossom-bells
The murmurous bees;
All languidly the land up-clomb
Around the central palace dome
By slow degrees.
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But that embowered pile did seem
A cloud from some fantastic dream—
Some visioned place:
Its towers were clothed in misty sheen,
And slumbering forests seemed to lean
About its base.
The branches nodded, and the breeze
Sighed ceaseless through the sleepy trees,
A long-drawn breath:
Nature's warm pulses here seemed stayed,
Steeped in a trance that all dismayed,
'T was so like death!
Only for ever grew and spread
The sombre branches overhead,
Thick leaf and bloom;
As if to make for Nature's sleep
The brooding silence still more deep—
More deep the gloom!
Into the heart a terror sank:
The vegetation lush and rank
On all sides ran,
And looped and drooped in bine and twine;
And never trace or track or sign
Of living man!
#####
Down by the river that runs through the wood
The horns are gaily winding.
Tra-la-la-la! That music good
Denotes the red deer's finding!
Tra-la-la-la!
La-la! la-la!
The echoes repeat
The music sweet
That tells of the red deer's finding!
Over the river and over the plain,
Through forest, vale, and hollow!
Tra-la-la-la! That note again
Bids all good huntsmen follow.
Tra-la-la-la!
La-la! la-la!
The sweet notes fail
Along the gale,
Then, all good huntsmen, follow!
By many a mile of moorland vast,
By many a mile of forest—
Tra-la-la-la!—the huntsman's blast
Tells where the chase is sorest.
Tra-la-la-la!
La-la! la-la!
Oh, hapless deer,
Thy fate is near,
Which vainly thou deplorest.
In vain the flying quarry seeks
The dark wood's friendly branches:
The chase is done—its race is run,
The dogs are at its haunches.
The Prince looks back. He rides alone,
His suite no longer follow,
And he can hear no friendly cheer
In answer to his holloa!
What a chase!
What a race!
What a terrible pace!
He's outridden his friends. It's a very queer case—
Where can he have got? What's the name of the place
He 'll never be able his steps to retrace!
He pulls up his steed,
Not too early, indeed,
For the poor beast is finished, it shakes like a reed.
If his home lay quite near,
And he knew where to steer,
His horse could not carry him there—that is clear.
Meanwhile each lengthening shadow shows
That day is drawing to a close.
In two more hours the glowing sun
Will down the western heavens run,
And quench its glories manifold
In yon bright sea of molten gold.
Before him that dense thicket vast and dim
Spreads out its awful silence and seclusion,
And none is near to tell its tale to him
And scare intrusion.
On either side his path a giant bole
Rears its huge form, a rude gigantic column.
That gloomy portal does not fill his soul
With fancies solemn.
His step is light on the luxuriant sod,
From the green blades a thousand dew-drops spurning.
Little he dreams that path has ne'er been trod
By foot returning.
Heedless he views the dark nooks in the glades,
Passing to spots that shafts of sunlight brighten—
Nor knows that human bones within those shades
Are laid to whiten.
For him there is no terror in the spot,
No hint of deaths to which it interest sad owes;
For him no spectres its bright sunshine blot,
Or fill its shadows.
For him the secret of that grove profound
Is locked away—that tragic tale, and tearful.
To him the death-like calm that reigns around
Is strange, not fearful.
So on he fares, through sunshine and through shade,
By paths that ne'er before were trod by mortal,
To where the dusky forest's green arcade
Leads to a portal.
Along that silent avenue the young Prince gaily passes,
'T is carpeted with velvet moss beneath the nodding grasses.
The dreamy sunlight through the boughs upon the green sward streaming,
Sets here and there with radiance rare a lingering dew-drop gleaming.
On either hand rise lofty stems; above, the branches mingle;
And, as a glimpse of blue shuts in the end of some green dingle,
Framed in an arch of greenery where that long alley closes
He sees a flight of steps, a gate o'ergrown with truant roses,
And some one who beside the gate in that warm sunshine dozes.
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Was ever there found
A sleeper so sound?
He thumps him and shakes him,
But that never wakes him;
Not kick, tweak, or pinch
Can stir him an inch.
I don't think he'd stir if you gave him a—pig—
An immoderate slice of the coldest "cold pig."
Cried the Prince, leaping o'er
The page, "Qu'il s'endort!"
So he left that inveterate sleeper to snore
While he ventured on farther the place to explore.
"'T is a very fine place
As one clearly may trace—
Though, by Jove," said the Prince, and he made a wry face,
"From the dirt that's about, it don't seem they can muster
So much as a Turk's head, or dust-brush, or duster!
It's quite an inch thick:
Oh, wouldn't I lick
The minions for playing this slovenly trick,
If I were the owner, and had a big stick!
Look! with curtains of velvet and carpets of plush, rooms—
And yet the floor's covered with toadstools and mushrooms!
It's well for the parlour-maid she'd not beside her
This child, when she left that great cobweb and spider.
It's evident cleanliness isn't their hobby!"
With these words the Prince reached the end of the lobby.
From the lobby he passed to the guard-room, and thence
To the courtyard and gardens, which both were immense.
The palace, he sees,
Lies back beyond these,
Apparently rather too darkened by trees—
They're not trees though he finds, bringing closer his peepers,
But ivy and woodbine and other quick creepers,
Which with no interference of gardeners to "worret,"
Have climbed to the roof of the loftiest turret.
How those creepers have turned and twirled,
Twisted, wandered, rambled, and curled!
Such a place, I ween,
Had never been seen—
From basement to roof in such greenery furled—
Throughout the whole inhabited world.
Not even that building, so widely known
For its want of proportion—
That vast abortion,
The Exhibition of 'Sixty-two,
Though quite a monstrosity to the view,
Seemed half so "overgrown."
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Swift across the court
Now the young Prince trips,
Sees around a sallyport
Hounds asleep in slips;
Huntsmen bold, returned from sport,
All prepared to blow a mort,
Snoring, horns to lips!
There they were becalmed, like ships
Lying with all sail outspread,
Lifeless on an ocean dead.
He draws near: there is no one to bar his way,
E'en the steeds are too sleepy to utter a "nay,"
While each single hound
In the pack, I 'll be bound,
Is so sound there's no chance of his making a sound,
Though not wanting in bark, since he's closely bound round
With branches of creepers;—but then they are boughs
That are not of the sort to be followed by "wows."
One huntsman would have an ugly fall
If he were not upheld by the palace wall,
Whence a stray branch of woodbine, in pitying scorn for him,
Has thrown out a trailer that's winding his horn for him.
Another one, dropt
Off soundly, is propt
By a buttress that stands where his steed by chance stopt.
An odd pillow, I vow;
For you 'll surely allow
That unless of some slumber your need is the utt'rest,
A sleep on a buttress seems anything but rest.
Two men in the doorway
Appear in a poor way,
So closely they're bound
And wound
Around;
Their feet in fetters, their temples crowned
By the snake-like stems in their various inclinings,
That they must appear
To the Prince, I fear,
Sleeping partners in some branch department of Twining's.
Past grooms as unawakened as sad sinners,
Past screws of hunters sound as Derby winners,
Past hounds as fast—no less—
As the express,
Through Bedfordshire into the land of Nod,
The young Prince trod,
And on through corridors and long arcades,
Halls wrapt in sombre shades,
And anterooms wherein had Echo slept
So long, it scarce awakened as he stept
Lightly and swiftly o'er
The dusty floor,
That sadly stood in need of being swept.
And ever and anon,
As he passed on,
In room, in hall, on stair,
Here, there, and everywhere,
He came on sleepers sleeping with the air
Of folks at active work by sleep o'ertaken,
Whom nothing could awaken;
Not even being—like physic with a sediment
That to its being swallowed's an impediment—
Well shaken!
The housemaid, seemingly in fuss and fluster,
Tripping downstairs with feather-broom and duster,
Caught unaware
Upon the bottom stair
By sudden slumber, had quite failed to muster
Sufficient sense to rouse herself to any stir,
And so lay dozing up against the banister.
A lacquey, carrying upstairs the coal-scuttle,
Had fallen napping, and let fall the whole scuttle;
A giddy page
Was, with another youngster of his age,
Playing at fly-the-garter in, the hall
When both asleep did fall—
One
Going to take a run,
Straining to start (as when is trained a pup—any
Pointer or sporting dog—and there gets up any
Partridge or pheasant, in the slip he 'll strain),
The other of the twain
Had fallen asleep while tucking in his twopenny!
Within their barracks several of the guards
Were quarrelling in their slumber over cards;
The butler in the cellar at the tap
Was taking such a nap,
He'd filled his silver flagon o'er and o'er,
And let the wine run all about the floor
Until the cask was drained and held no more.
But he'd continued after that to snore,
Until he was as dusted
And cobwebbed and encrusted
As rare old port, bottled in 'Thirty-four.
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All these the Prince passed by with stealthy tread
As on he sped,
Until he reached the grandest room of all,
The banquet-hall,
Where on the board a mighty feast was spread.
But since the day when first that cloth was laid
Time had strange havoc made
With dish and dainty on the board arrayed;
Had played strange tricks
With those—some five or six—
People of station
Who had been favoured with an invitation
To dinner with the ruler of the nation;
In short, to no conclusion harsh to jump, any
Person of taste
Had thought the King disgraced,
Not only by his room, but by his company.
Vast mushrooms, spawn of hideous dreams,
Had quickened in the rotting seams,
And dusty cobwebs huge,
Wherein did bloated spiders lie,
And feign to sleep, were hung on high;
But there was neither gnat nor fly
To catch by subterfuge.
The very mice had fallen asleep
That ventured in that hall to creep.
And where the sun athwart the gloom
Poured through the pane
A glittering lane
Like Dreamland's golden bridge,
You looked for stir of life in vain,
Because the very midge
Slept in that drowsy room,
As silent as the tomb!
The King—with half-way to his lips the beaker,
And head half turning to the latest speaker—
Presiding o'er his banquet, slumbered there-amid.
Like the first Pharaoh sleeping in his pyramid;
While the Prime Minister, acute and wise,
Still saw what must be done with fast-shut eyes,
And, as behoved him in the royal presence,
Kept nodding to his Sovereign acquiescence.
The Treasurer and Chancellor of Exchequer
Was bolt upright, as trim as a three-decker.
For raising coin and borrowing he was meant,
And nobody could ever say he leant To right or left,
E'en when of sense bereft.
The Secretary, Foreign and Domestic,
Upright did less stick,
And, being long accustomed to indite,
Inclined to right.
Beside the door a sentry
Stood like the Roman soldier in the entry
Discovered in the ruins of Pompeii,
(Or Herculaneum—which was't? You see, I
Have got no book of reference at all
Here in the country, not e'en what we'll call,
For sake of rhyme, a classical invént'ry.
At any rate, he stood
There like a thing of wood;
And by his side did stand,
Salver in hand,
A servitor whose duty was to cater
With flagons, flasks, and bowls
For all the thirsty souls—
(He's called a buttery-man at Alma Mater)—
Well! There this lad of liquor
Remained a sticker
Against the stair-foot, with his laden tray
Of claret, sherry, Burgundy, Tokay,
And other wines we 'll call et cætera—
Just like a very image or dumb-waiter.
Another 'mid the goblets lay a-sprawl—
It made the young Prince think
Him overcome with drink,
Which really had not been the case 'at all.
O ercome he was there's no denying, but
'T was only sleep; for though the glass was cut,
He was not even blown—
He could have shown
He did not owe to any drop his fall.
Through every tiny crevice, nook, and cranny,
Heaven knows how many
Of every kind of creeping plant had sprouted
And grown and wandered since,
Till the young Prince
If he were in—or out—of doors half doubted.
The clinging tendrils,
Which Nature (as an officer his men drills)
Had taught to turn one way, enwound and bound
The silent sleepers who all slept so sound.
One trailer formed a sort of chain between
The foremost Maid of Honour and the Queen,
As if to say
To those who sleeping lay,
"It's time to rise, good sirs, and go away"—
In short, the very same remark that made is
By stingy hosts who save their wines by dint
Of the discourteous hint,
"Come, don't you think it's time to join the ladies?"
The young Prince gazed
Upon the scene amazed.
He shouted; not a single head was raised—
No single sound upon the silence broke—
Nobody spoke—
All heads alike were bowed.
He shouted loud
As one who wishes to outroar a crowd;
But not a word
He heard—
No creature stirred:
The situation really seemed absurd.
There lay the feast
Untouched for years at least;
And though they'd sat so long,
Not one of all the throng—
Of feeding seemed inclined to be beginner,
And there was the young Prince,
Dropt in some minutes since,
And making such a din
Since he'd come in,
That he became for them another dinner.
At last tired out,
Of vain attempts by shout,
And even shake, to rout
From their deep sleep the slumberers about
The banquet-table,—
Whether he'd be able
Ever to wake them, feeling quite in doubt,
The Prince made up his mind
To leave them all behind,
And see if some one waking he could find,
And so passed on through halls and quiet cloisters,
But everywhere found people mute as oysters
And sound as tops.
But yet he never stops,
Though neither man nor woman, girl nor boy stirs.
All is as still as death,
And not a breath
Stirs the ancestral banners or the arras;
No page's voice or groom's
Heard in the rooms,
No maid's shrill tongue the listener's ear to harass;
No step upon the stair,
No footfall anywhere,
Not e'en on what Jane Housemaid calls the tarrace.
But still the Prince his onward course pursued,
Half fearing to intrude,
As each fresh chamber doubtfully he stept in.
In tiring-rooms he views
The ladies' maids so tired they 're in a snooze.
Then for a change
Through sleeping-rooms he 'll range,
Which by some contradiction very strange
Appear the only rooms that are not slept in.
Yet onward still he strays
All undecided,
And yet his steps are guided;
For round his head on airy pinion plays
A band of Fays,
Who lead him forward still by devious ways,
To where the Sleeping Beauty lies,
O'er whose tender violet eyes
For such years the lids have closed,
On her couch while she reposed.
"Come away!" sang each Fay,
"Now we hail the happy day
When the Prince shall break the spell
Spoken by old Spite the fell.
Now sing we merrily,
For the destined one is he!"
Thus all gladly sung the Fays,
Though he could not hear their lays,
Wandering on as in a maze.
Last he reached a silent chamber,
Where through all the woodbine's clamber,
And the roses' red profusion,
And the jasmine's silver stars,
Glowed the glorious sun's intrusion—
Misty golden bars,
Touching all with amber.
But—or e'er that room he entered
Where the magic all was centred,
For a space, in wonder, dumbly
Gazed he on that figure comely
Sleeping in the snowy bed,
Where the sunshine splendour shed
From the casement's pictured pane
Crimson, blue, and yellow stain
In a variegated rain.
(Not all colours, as we know,
That in painted windows glow
Can the sun contrive to throw—
Primal tints, red, yellow, indigo,
Will, however, through a "windy" go.)
One moment on the threshold—
One moment and no more!
So like a thing of dreams
And Fairyland she seems,
That he must pause till time his breath restore,
And he of life take fresh hold—
One moment and no more—
And then across the room he bounded
To that white bed by clustering bloom surrounded—
Across the startled floor,
Whence foot had been estranged so long before,
The frightened echoes that his step awoke
Seemed shrieking out to hear when silence broke!
In her bed, as white as snow,
Softly had she slumbered,
While old Time with silent flow
Had the long years numbered.
Quiet as the dead she lay,
Sleeping all those years away
On her pillow, woodbine-cumbered,
Wreathed with flowering may.
And her breath so softly slips
Through the rosy-tinted lips,
That the white lace seems to rest
Moveless on her whiter breast—
That it scarce appears to stir
One of all the fluttering motes
That, in love to look at her,
Glitter down the golden lanes
That the sun pours through the panes,
Bright with armour-coats.
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Drawn by her sweet lips' perfume,
As a bee to golden broom,
When the braes are all in bloom,
Stole the Prince across the room.
Every step he nearer set,
Oped the eyes of violet—
Oped a little—wider yet!—
Till the white lids, quite asunder,
Showed the beauties hidden under—
Showed the soft eyes, full of wonder,
Opening, towards him turned—
Till their radiance bent upon him
From his trance of marvel won him;
And his bosom burned
With the passion to outpour
All his soul her feet before,
Careless if she spurned,
So that he might only tell
That he loved her—and how well!
Now through the palace woke the stir of life;
Both fork and knife
Were in the banquet-hall with vigour plied,
While far and wide
Awoke so great a riot after the quiet,
It seemed as if the household was at strife.
Girl, woman, boy, and man
Bustled about and ran—
All hurried, not one plodding!
Because, you see,
Each thought that he or she
Had been the only one that had been nodding,
And, fearful of detection,
Was bound to strive and look alive,
In order to escape correction.
Meanwhile the red sun set. And yet
The household did not into order get:
All was surprise and wonder,
Error and blunder.
The fire was out, the cook was in a pet,
The feast was cold, the Queen was in a fret;
The hunters just returned, they thought, from hunting,
Felt it affronting
Their game should get so very high and mite-y;
The housemaid, seeing all the dust and dirt,
Felt hurt,
It drove her almost crazy—at least flighty.
But over all this din and turmoil soon
Uprose the silver moon,
And by its rays shed on the dewy grass,
Forth from the palace that young pair did pass,
And threaded the deep shades
In the arcades
Of sombre forests that around them lay.
And so they took their way
To Fairyland, wherein, as legends say,
'Mid mirth and merry-making, song and laughter,
They married, living happy ever after—
And there, I'm told, they 're living to this day!