Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

In Merry Mood

"Then cast away care, let sorrow cease,
A fig for melancholy."

All rules are suspended, grave affairs of state are laid aside, and the Court Jester demands a hearing. Is it my fancy, or do young eyes brighten, rosy cheeks dimple, lips part a little when he approaches?

[ocr errors]

Clad all in gay motley, swinging his bauble, his cap and bells making merry music, he bounds upon the stage and bids us listen to his quips and jokes. He is by turns Puck and Ariel, Harlequin, Punchinello, and Court Fool. "Touchstone we well may call him, this man of mirth, for when he tests the world's metal the pure gold of laughter shines out from the alloy. Seeing us smile even before he opens his lips he assumes a solemn attitude and cries:

"Good people all, of every sort,

Give ear unto my song;
And if you find it wondrous short
It will not hold you long."

Then hark how the "light-heeled numbers laughing go!" He tells us tales that smooth out the wrinkles of dull Care and provoke Laughter to hold both his sides, as well as others less jolly but full of wit and good cheer. A quaint, breezy moral, too, creeps in here and there, for the Court Fool, if you study him well, is sometimes a preacher; but whether frolicking or preaching or philosophizing, he brings with him, like Milton's nymph:

"Jest and youthful jollity,

Quips and cranks, and wanton Wiles,
Nods and Becks and Wreathed Smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe's check,

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors]

XII

IN MERRY MOOD

On a Favorite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of
Goldfishes

"T WAS on a lofty vase's side
Where China's gayest art had dyed,
The azure flowers that blow,
Demurest of the tabby kind,
The pensive Selima, reclined,
Gazed on the lake below.

Her conscious tail her joy declared:
The fair, round face, the snowy beard,
The velvet of her paws,

Her coat that with the tortoise vies,
Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes,-
She saw, and purred applause.

Still had she gazed, but 'midst the tide
Two angel forms were seen to glide,
The Genii of the stream:

Their scaly armor's Tyrian hue,
Through richest purple, to the view
Betrayed a golden gleam.

In Merry

Mood

The hapless Nymph with wonder saw:

A whisker first, and then a claw,

With many an ardent wish,

She stretched, in vain, to reach the prize,—
What female heart can gold despise?

What cat's averse to fish?

Presumptuous maid! with looks intent,
Again she stretched, again she bent,
Nor knew the gulf between,—
Malignant Fate sat by and smiled,-
The slippery verge her feet beguiled;
She tumbled headlong in!

Eight times emerging from the flood,
She mewed to every watery god
Some speedy aid to send:

No Dolphin came, no Nereid stirred,
Nor cruel Tom nor Susan heard,-
A favorite has no friend!

From hence, ye Beauties! undeceived,
Know one false step is ne'er retrieved,
And be with caution bold:

Not all that tempts your wandering eyes
And heedless hearts is lawful prize,
Nor all that glitters gold!

THOMAS GRAY.

« AnteriorContinuar »