THE SPEEDING OF THE KING'S SPITE
A king—estranged from his loving Queen
By a foolish royal whim—
Tired and sick of the dull routine
Of matters surrounding him—
Issued a mandate in this wise.—
"THE DOWER OF MY DAUGHTER'S HAND
I WILL GIVE TO HIM WHO HOLDS THIS PRIZE,
THE STRANGEST THING IN THE LAND."
But the King, sad sooth! in this grim decree
Had a motive low and mean;—
'Twas a royal piece of chicanery
To harry and spite the Queen;
For King though he was, and beyond compare,
He had ruled all things save one—
Then blamed the Queen that his only heir
Was a daughter—not a son.
The girl had grown, in the mother's care,
Like a bud in the shine and shower
That drinks of the wine of the balmy air
Till it blooms into matchless flower;
Her waist was the rose's stem that bore
The flower—and the flower's perfume—
That ripens on till it bulges o'er
With its wealth of bud and bloom.
And she had a lover—lowly sprung,—
But a purer, nobler heart
Never spake in a courtlier tongue
Or wooed with a dearer art:
And the fair pair paled at the King's decree;
But the smiling Fates contrived
To have them wed, in a secrecy
That the Queen HERSELF connived—
While the grim King's heralds scoured the land
And the countries roundabout,
Shouting aloud, at the King's command,
A challenge to knave or lout,
Prince or peasant,—"The mighty King
Would have ye understand
That he who shows him the strangest thing
Shall have his daughter's hand!"
And thousands flocked to the royal throne,
Bringing a thousand things
Strange and curious;—One, a bone—
The hinge of a fairy's wings;
And one, the glass of a mermaid queen,
Gemmed with a diamond dew,
Where, down in its reflex, dimly seen,
Her face smiled out at you.
One brought a cluster of some strange date,
With a subtle and searching tang
That seemed, as you tasted, to penetrate
The heart like a serpent's fang;
And back you fell for a spell entranced,
As cold as a corpse of stone,
And heard your brains, as they laughed and danced
And talked in an undertone.
One brought a bird that could whistle a tune
So piercingly pure and sweet,
That tears would fall from the eyes of the moon
In dewdrops at its feet;
And the winds would sigh at the sweet refrain,
Till they swooned in an ecstacy,
To waken again in a hurricane
Of riot and jubilee.
One brought a lute that was wrought of a shell
Luminous as the shine
Of a new-born star in a dewy dell,—
And its strings were strands of wine
That sprayed at the Fancy's touch and fused,
As your listening spirit leant
Drunken through with the airs that oozed
From the o'ersweet instrument.