Behold thy lady seated at the board: Relinquish now her hand, and while the servant Places the chair that not too far she sit, And not so near that her soft bosom press Too close against the table, with a spring Stoop thou and gather round thy lady's feet The wandering volume of her robe. Beside her Then sit thee down; for the true cavalier Is not permitted to forsake the side Of her he serves, except there should arise Some strange occasion warranting the use Of so great freedom. When one reads of these springs and little hops, which were once so elegant, it is almost with a sigh for a world which no longer springs or hops in the service of beauty, or even dreams of doing it. But a passage which will touch the sympathetic with a still keener sense of loss is one which hints how lovely a lady looked when carving, as she then sometimes did: Swiftly now the blade, That sharp and polished at thy right hand lies, Draw naked forth, and like the blade of Mars Flash it upon the eyes of all. The point Press 'twixt thy finger-tips, and bowing low Offer the handle to her. Now is seen The soft and delicate playing of the muscles In the white hand upon its work intent. The graces that around the lady stoop Clothe themselves in new forms, and from her fingers Sportively flying, flutter to the tips Of her unconscious rosy knuckles, thence To dip into the hollows of the dimples That Love beside her knuckles has impressed. Throughout the dinner it is the part of the well-bred husband--if so ill-bred as to remain at all to sit impassive and quiescent while the cavalier watches over the wife with tender care, prepares her food, offers what agrees with her, and forbids what harms. He is virtually master of the house; he can order the servants about; if the dinner is not to his mind, it is even his high prerogative to scold the cook. The poet reports something of the talk at table; and here occurs one of the most admired passages of the poem, the light irony of which it is hard to reproduce in a version. One of the guests, in a strain of affected sensibility, has been denouncing man's cruelty to animals: