The Duke, dumb-stricken with amazement, Stood for a while in a sultry smother, 310 And then, with a smile that partook of the awful, Turned her over to his yellow mother To learn what was held decorous and lawful; And the mother smelt blood with a cat-like instinct, As her cheek quick whitened through all its quince-tinct. 315 Oh, but the lady heard the whole truth at once! What meant she?--Who was she?--Her duty and station, The wisdom of age and the folly of youth, at once, Its decent regard and its fitting relation-- In brief, my friend, set all the devils in hell free 320 And turn them out to carouse in a belfry And treat the priests to a fifty-part canon, And then you may guess how that tongue of hers ran on! Well, somehow or other it ended at last And, licking her whiskers, out she passed; 325 And after her--making (he hoped) a face Like Emperor Nero or Sultan Saladin, Stalked the Duke's self with the austere grace Of ancient hero or modern paladin, From door to staircase--oh, such a solemn 330 Unbending of the vertebral column! XII However, at sunrise our company mustered; And here was the huntsman bidding unkennel, And there 'neath his bonnet the pricker blustered, With feather dank as a bough of wet fennel; 335 For the courtyard walls were filled with fog You might have cut as an ax chops a log-- Like so much wool for color and bulkiness; And out rode the Duke in a perfect sulkiness, Since, before breakfast, a man feels but queasily, 340 And a sinking at the lower abdomen Begins the day with indifferent omen. And lo, as he looked around uneasily, The sun plowed the fog up and drove it asunder This way and that from the valley under; 345 And, looking through the court-yard arch, Down in the valley, what should meet him But a troop of gypsies on their march? No doubt with the annual gifts to greet him. XIII