Dedicated to Lovers
The Frog that loved the Changing Star
Was worship’d by a Fairy,
Who made for him a waistcoat trim
Of silk and satin, soft and airy,
Button’d with eyes of fireflies
In manner military.
And more to move his languid love
A crimson cap she made him,
According to many, plumed with antennae
Of moths that rob the flowers’ honey;
And with her kisses, lovers’ money,
For that she gave she paid him.
She fed him too, till he was blue,
With endearing terms on caddis worms;
And caught for him the wriggling germs
Of midges; and with tender pats
She wiled and woo’d him while he chew’d ’em:
Till he said, ‘Bother! I love another.
I love the Star I see afar,
That changeth oft her fires so soft
From blue to red and red to blue;
And that is why I love not you.
Therefore I pray you take away
Your tedious arm, which does me harm
Because it makes me feel too warm.
But give to me my new guitar
That I may sing to yonder Star.’
With that he gaped and guggled so
The Fairy into fits did go;
And he bounded near and bounded far,
Strumming the strings of his guitar,
And tried to reach the Changing Star.
And all the while with his splay feet
Kept time unto the music meet.
With hat and waistcoat on he sprang,
And as he bounded still he sang.
And this the Saga says is why
The Frog he always jumps so high;
For, though the Star is very far,
To reach it he must ever try,
Until it’s time for him to die.
As for the foolish Fay, ’tis wist,
She wept herself into a mist,
Which wanders where the Clouds are strewn
About the deathbed of the Moon,
When with wan lips, in sudden swoon
(Because her unkind lord, the Sun,
Will ever from her loveless run),
She cries amid her Starry Maids:
‘Ah me, alas, my beauty fades!’—
And so sinks down into the Shades.
[The Troll and the Mountain]
Dedicated to the Great
Said the Troll to the Mountain, ‘Old fellow, how goes it?’
The Mountain responded, ‘My answer—suppose it.’
Said the Troll, ‘Dear old friend, you are grumpy to-day.’
Said the Mountain, ‘I think you had best run away.’
The Troll said, ‘You suffer, old boss, from the blues.’
The Mountain retorted, ‘I may if I choose.’
‘Ah, that,’ cried the Troll, ‘is effect of the liver.’
‘Take care,’ quoth the Hill, ‘or I’ll give you the shiver.’
‘By my cap and its feather,’ the Spirit replies,
‘You’ll be getting too portly without exercise.’
‘You pert little fly,’ said the Rock in a rage,
‘I will teach you to chaff at a hill of my age.’
So he jump’d up to punish the impudent Fay,
Who wisely retorted by running away;
Until the old Mountain broke right down the middle,
When back he came nimbly and played on the fiddle.
My Advice to all Mountains that make such a stir, it’s
‘Don’t get in a passion with pert little spirits.’