"Is it not the voice melodious
Of your mother? Oh, I know it,
'Tis the growling of my Mumma!
Mumma! Yes, my own black Mumma!"
Atta Troll, whilst these words utt'ring,
Like a madman headlong bounded
From the cavern to destruction!
Ah! he rushed upon his doom!
In the vale of Ronceval,
On the very spot where whilom
Charlemagne's peerless nephew
Gasped away his fleeting spirit,
There fell also Atta Troll,
Fell through treason, like the other,
Whom the traitor, knighthood's Judas,
Ganelon of Mainz, betrayed.
XI
Four gigantic men in triumph
Brought along the slaughtered Bear.
Upright sat he in an armchair,
Like a patient at the hot-wells.
That same day soon after skinning
Atta Troll, they up to auction
Put the skin. For just a hundred
Francs a furrier purchased it.
Elegantly then he trimmed it,
And he edged it round with scarlet,
And again he sold it quickly
Just for double what it cost.
So, at last, third hand possessed it—
Julietta, and at Paris
It reposes in her chamber,
Serving as a bed-side carpet.
What of Mumma? Ah, the Mumma
Is a poor weak woman! Frailty
Is her name! Alas, the women
Are as so much porcelain frail.