An Extempore

When they were come into Faery's Court     They rang, no one at home, all gone to sport     And dance and kiss and love as faerys do     For Faries be as human lovers true,     Amid the woods they were so lone and wild     Where even the Robin feels himself exil'd     And where the very books as if affraid     Hurry along to some less magic shade.     'No one at home'! the fretful princess cry'd     'And all for nothing such a dre[a]ry ride     And all for nothing my new diamond cross     No one to see my persian feathers toss     No one to see my Ape, my Dwarf, my Fool     Or how I pace my Otaheitan mule.     Ape, Dwarf and Fool why stand you gaping there     Burst the door open, quick, or I declare     I'll switch you soundly and in pieces tear.'     The Dwarf began to tremble and the Ape     Star'd at the Fool, the Fool was all agape     The Princess grasp'd her switch but just in time     The Dwarf with piteous face began to rhyme.     "O mighty Princess did you ne'er hear tell     What your poor servants know but too too well     Know you the three great crimes in faery land     The first alas! poor Dwarf I understand     I made a whipstock of a faery's wand     The next is snoring in their company     The next the last the direst of the three     Is making free when they are not at home.     I was a Prince, a baby prince, my doom     You see, I made a whipstock of a wand     My top has henceforth slept in faery land.     He was a Prince the Fool, a grown up Prince     But he has never been a King's son since     He fell a snoring at a faery Ball     Your poor Ape was a Prince and he poor thing     But ape, so pray your highness stay awhile     'Tis sooth indeed we know it to our sorrow,     Persist and you may be an ape tomorrow,     While the Dwarf spake the Princess all for spite     Peal'd the brown hazel twig to lilly white     Clench'd her small teeth, and held her lips apart     Try'd to look unconcerned with beating heart.     They saw her highness had made up her mind     And quaver'd like the reeds before the wind     And they had had it, but O happy chance     The Ape for very fear began to dance     And grin'd as all his uglyness did ache,     She staid her vixen fingers for his sake     He was so very ugly: then she took     Her pocket mirror and began to look     First at herself and [then] at him and then     She smil'd at her own beauteous face again.     Yet for all this, for all her pretty face     She took it in her head to see the place.     Women gain little from experience     Either in Lovers, husbands or expense.     The more their beauty the more fortune too     Beauty before the wide world never knew.     So each fair reasons, tho' it oft miscarries.     She thought her pretty face would please the fa[e]ries.     "My darling Ape I wont whip you today     Give me the Picklock sirrah and go play."     They all three wept but counsel was as vain     As crying cup biddy to drops of rain.     Yet lingeringly did the sad Ape forth draw     The Picklock from the Pocket in his Jaw.     The Princess took it and dismounting straight     Trip'd in blue silver'd slippers to the gate     And touch'd the wards, the Door full courteously     Opened, she enter'd with her servants three.     Again it clos'd and there was nothing seen     But the Mule grasing on the herbage green. End of Canto xii. Canto the xiii.     The Mule no sooner saw himself alone     Than he prick'd up his Ears, and said 'well done!     At least unhappy Prince I may be free,     No more a Princess shall side saddle me     O King of Othaiete, tho' a Mule     'Aye every inch a King', tho' 'Fortune's fool.'     Well done, for by what Mr. Dwarfy said     I would not give a sixpence for her head.'     Even as he spake he trotted in high glee     To the knotty side of an old Pollard tree     And rub'd his sides against the mossed bark     Till his Girths burst and left him naked stark     Except his Bridle, how get rid of that     Buckled and tied with many a twist and plait.     At last it struck him to pretend to sleep     And then the thievish Monkies down would creep     And filch the unpleasant trammels quite away.     No sooner thought of than adown he lay     Sham'd a good snore, the Monkey-men descended     And whom they thought to injure they befriended.     They hung his Bridle on a topmost bough     And of[f] he went run, trot, or anyhow,