And Villien, naught abashed, replied again: "Lo, now, how silly you must be, you know, My simple stanzas not to understand; 'Tis thus our truest poets write their rhymes; They try their sense and meaning to conceal; But you should solve their riddles, though 'tis said They don't the answers know themselves, sometimes. However, be that as it may, I think I'll give you one verse more. So Villien sang: "That sign, once mine, is thine, ay, closelier mine, For what is thine is mine, and mine is thine, And this, I much opine, is line on line; To learn the obvious moral once for all." But Herlin looked aghast, as well he might, Nor knew the teaching of her little song." The last legend, that of _Goanveer_, tells how-- "Fleet Goanveer had lost the race, and stood There in the stable near to Epsom Downs." This mare the Coming K---- had backed heavily, but his trusted friend, Sir Loosealot, obtaining access to her stable the night before the race, had drugged her, so that on the day she hobbled sickly to the winning-post. By this evil trick Sir Loosealot wins much, whilst the Coming K---- is a heavy loser. Guelpho visits the mare in her stable, and thus addresses her, in a parody of the celebrated passage in Guinevere, where Arthur parts from his faithless Queen:-- "And all went well till on the turf I went, Believing thou wouldst fortune bring to me, And place me higher yet in name and fame. Then came the shameful act of Loosealot; Then came thy breaking down in that great race; And now my name's worth nil at Tattersall's, And all my knights can curl their lips at me; Can say 'I've come a cropper,' and the like, And all through thee and he--and him, I mean-- But slips will happen at a time like this. Canst wonder I am sad when thus I see I am contemned amongst my chiefest knights? When I am hinted at in public prints As being a man who sold the people's race? But think not, Goanveer, my matchless mare, Thy lord has wholly lost his love for thee. Yet must I leave thee to thy shame, for how Couldst thou be entered for a race again? The public would not hear of it; nay, more, Would hoot and hound thee from the racing-course, Being one they had loved, yet one on whom they had lost." He paused, and in the pause the mare rejoiced. For he relaxed the caresses of his arms; And, thinking he had done, the mare did neigh, As with delight; but Guelpho spake again:-- "Yet, think not that I come to urge thy faults; I did not come to curse thee, Goanveer: The wrath which first I felt when thou brok'st down Is past--it never will again return. I came to take my last fond leave of thee, For I shall ne'er run mare or horse again. O silky mane, with which I used to play At Hampton! O most perfect equine form, And points the like of which no mare yet had