There was already this man in his post,
        This in his station, and that in his office,
And the Duke’s plan admitted a wife, at most,
        To meet his eye, with the other trophies,
Now outside the hall, now in it,
        To sit thus, stand thus, see and be seen,
At the proper place in the proper minute, 190
        And die away the life between. 
And it was amusing enough, each infraction
        Of rule—­(but for after-sadness that came)
To hear the consummate self-satisfaction
        With which the young Duke and the old dame
Would let her advise, and criticise,
And, being a fool, instruct the wise,
        And, child-like, parcel out praise or blame: 
They bore it all in complacent guise,
As though an artificer, after contriving 200
A wheel-work image as if it were living,
Should find with delight it could motion to strike him! 
So found the Duke, and his mother like him: 
The lady hardly got a rebuff—­
That had not been contemptuous enough,
With his cursed smirk, as he nodded applause,
And kept off the old mother-cat’s claws.

IX

So, the little lady grew silent and thin,
        Paling and ever paling,
As the way is with a hid chagrin; 210
        And the Duke perceived that she was ailing,
And said in his heart, “’Tis done to spite me,
But I shall find in my power to right me!”
Don’t swear, friend!  The old one, many a year,
Is in hell, and the Duke’s self . . . you shall hear.

X

Well, early in autumn, at first winter-warning,
When the stag had to break with his foot, of a morning,
A drinking-hole out of the fresh tender ice
That covered the pond till the sun, in a trice,
Loosening it, let out a ripple of gold, 220
        And another and another, and faster and faster
Till, dimpling to blindness, the wide water rolled: 
        Then it so chanced that the Duke our master
Asked himself what were the pleasures in season,
        And found, since the calendar bade him be hearty,
He should do the Middle Age no treason
        In resolving on a hunting-party. 
Always provided, old books showed the way of it! 
        What meant old poets by their strictures? 
And when old poets had said their say of it, 230
        How taught old painters in their pictures? 
We must revert to the proper channels,
Workings in tapestry, paintings on panels,
And gather up woodcraft’s authentic traditions: 
Here was food for our various ambitions,
As on each case, exactly stated—­
        To encourage your dog, now, the properest chirrup
        Or best prayer to Saint Hubert on mounting your stirrup—­