“This tale of thine, and I may reap,
“Perchance, from this the boon of sleep,
“For at this moment from my eyes
“The hope of present slumber flies.”
“Well, sire, with such a hope, I’ll track
“My seventy years of memory back:
“I think ’twas in my twentieth spring,—
“Ay, ’twas,—when Casimir was king—
“John Casimir,—I was his page
“Six summers in my earlier age;130
“A learned monarch, faith! was he,
“And most unlike your majesty:
“He made no wars, and did not gain
“New realms to lose them back again;
“And (save debates in Warsaw’s diet)
“He reign’d in most unseemly quiet;
“Not that he had no cares to vex,
“He loved the muses and the sex;
“And sometimes these so froward are,
“They made him wish himself at war;140
“But soon his wrath being o’er, he took
“Another mistress, or new book:
