"You remember Miss Muffet
Who sat on a tuffet
Partaking of curds and whey; Well, I am the spider
Who sat down beside her
And frightened Miss Muffet away!
"There was nothing against her!
An elderly spinster
Were such a grammatical mate
For a spider and spinner,
I swore I would win her,
I knew I had met with my fate!
"That love was the purest
And strongest and surest
I'd felt since my first thread was spun;
I know I'm a bogey,
But she's an old fogey,
So why in the world did she run?
"When Bruce was in trouble,
A spider, my double,
Encouraged him greatly, they say!
Now, why should the spider
Who sat down beside her
Have frightened Miss Muffet away?"
He seemed to have much more to tell,
But we could scarce be listening well,
Although we tried with all our might
To look attentive and polite;
For still afar we heard the thin
Clear fairy-call to Peterkin;
Clear as a skylark's mounting song
It drew our wandering thoughts along.
Afar, it seemed, yet, ah, so nigh,
Deep in our dreams it scaled the sky,
In captive dreams that brooked no bars
It touched the love that moves the stars, And with sweet music's golden tether
It bound our hearts and heaven together.
SONG
Wake, arise, the lake, the skies
Fade into the faery day;
Come and sing before our king,
Heed not Time, the dotard grey;
Time has given his crown to heaven—
Ah, how long? Awake, away!
Then, as the Hermit rambled on
In one long listless monotone,
We heard a wild and mournful groan
Come rumbling down the tunnelled way;
A voice, an awful mournful bray,
Singing some old funereal lay;
Then solemn footsteps, muffled, dull,
Approached as if they trod on wool,
And as they nearer, nearer drew,
We saw our Host was listening too!
His bulging eyes began to glow
Like great red match-heads rubbed at night,
And then he stole with a grim "O-ho!"
To that grey old wicket where, out of sight,
Blandly rubbing his hands and humming,
He could see, at one glance, whatever was coming.
He had never been so jubilant or frolicsome before,
As he scurried on his cruel hairy crutches to the door;
And flung it open wide
And most hospitably cried,
"Won't you walk into my parlour? I've some little friends to tea,—
They'll be highly entertaining to a man of sympathy,
Such as you yourself must be!"