This from her cabinet she took one morn,
When they still urged the suit of that old king,
And said, half jesting, with a pretty scorn,
“Why mate your wilful Queen with mouldering
And crabbed Age? Now were he shaped like this,
With such a face, he were not so amiss.
“Queens are but women; ’tis a sickly year
That couples frost and thaw, our minstrels sing.”—
“Ho!” thought the graybeards, “sets the wind so near?”
And thought again: “Why not? the schemeful king