And pray their heads may tumble off and roll about the floor;
And every one of them patted his paunch, and sleeked his colloppy jowls,
And smirked and sighed in ecstacy, and looked as wise as owls;
And sleepily said—"We cannot doubt—and proofs are staggering things—
The lady's silence looks like guilt—besides, how sweet he sings!
Behold his cloud of witnesses!—The Original Jacobs' arisen!"—
Whereat the toadies dinned the air with shrieks—"It's his'n—it's his'n!"
But pale in latticed southern skies a lady's face did shine,
And sad and fiery on the wind a clear voice murmured "Mine."
And above, a scowl began to knit the deeps of the inner air;
And below, it was a fearsome thing to hear Sir Public swear.
VI.
It was the bold Sir Doubleyou (now, Muses, lend your vim!
I show a proper self-respect in well-describing him.)
A bow-shot from her bower he rode between the barley sheaves;
The sun came dazzling through and flamed upon his brazen greaves;
A red-cross knight forever knelt to a lady in his shield,
That sparkled like a planet bright upon the yellow field;
His gemmy bridle glittered, like the branch of stars I've seen
Hung in the golden Galaxy, Sir Church's Magazine;
Thick-jewelled shone his saddle-leather as he onward came ;
His helmet and his helmet plume burned like one burning flame;
On burnished hooves his war-horse trod; his brow in sunlight glowed;
His coal-black curls from underneath his splendid helmet flowed:
Some bearded meteor trailing light, he might be likened to;
And "tirra lirra" by the river sang Sir Doubleyou.
("All Tennyson's," the Boobies cry—ye devilish race malign,
If ever Sir Ball has laid a lay, these golden eggs are mine!)
VII.
It was the bold Sir Doubleyou, the mortal foe of wrong,
He heard the lady's injury, he loved the lady's song.
Forth from the sheath he flashed his sword, and burst like thunder in;
One stroke the bovine fiddle broke and flindered all the din.
And then with hilt and mailèd fist, he turned the donkeys sore
All to a bloody zebra-stripe and pard-like spots of gore.
And Marsh he meekly cluttered off and sought his legal pale;
And Morse, all red and black and blue, made tracks for Cherry Vale.
Then whirling up his terrible brand, upon Sir Ball he drave,
And clear and clean from head to chine, he him asunder clave.
"Lie thus," he said, "whom lying thus, no minstrel ever can fear."
And the Boobies blinked at the cloven corse, and murmured, "Too severe.'
But the gay New Jersey editors did dance within their dens,
And gayly wrote those jolly blades the tale with bright steel pens.
And Sir Raymond praised the doughty deed of knightly derring-do;
And Sir Sedley, Knight of the Round Table, declared it just and true;
And Sir Prentice's jests flew out of his beard as only fly they can;
And the chill Sir Godkin said, "Ah—hum—a very unfortunate man."
And the good Sir Public clapped his hands and bade the joy-bells ring;
And spirit-sweet in the air again the lady's song did sing.
