Then clapping heel to his horse, the mere curveter,
        Out rode the Duke, and after his hollo
Horses and hounds swept, huntsman and servitor,
        And back I turned and bade the crone follow. 
And what makes me confident what’s to be told you
        Had all along been of this crone’s devising,
Is, that, on looking round sharply, behold you,
        There was a novelty quick as surprising:  470
For first, she had shot up a full head in stature,
        And her step kept pace with mine nor faltered,
As if age had foregone its usurpature,
        And the ignoble mien was wholly altered,
And the face looked quite of another nature,
And the change reached too, whatever the change meant,
Her shaggy wolf-skin cloak’s arrangement: 
For where its tatters hung loose like sedges,
Gold coins were glittering on the edges,
Like the band-roll strung with tomans 480
Which proves the veil a Persian woman’s: 
And under her brow, like a snail’s horns newly
        Come out as after the rain he paces,
Two unmistakeable eye-points duly
        Live and aware looked out of their places. 
So, we went and found Jacynth at the entry
Of the lady’s chamber standing sentry;
I told the command and produced my companion,
And Jacynth rejoiced to admit any one,
For since last night, by the same token, 490
Not a single word had the lady spoken: 
They went in both to the presence together,
While I in the balcony watched the weather.

XV

And now, what took place at the very first of all,
I cannot tell, as I never could learn it: 
Jacynth constantly wished a curse to fall
On that little head of hers and burn it
If she knew how she came to drop so soundly
        Asleep of a sudden and there continue
The whole time sleeping as profoundly 500
        As one of the boars my father would pin you
’Twixt the eyes where life holds garrison,
—­Jacynth forgive me the comparison! 
But where I begin my own narration
Is a little after I took my station
To breathe the fresh air from the balcony,
And, having in those days a falcon eye,
To follow the hunt thro’ the open country,
        From where the bushes thinlier crested
The hillocks, to a plain where’s not one tree. 510
        When, in a moment, my ear was arrested
By—­was it singing, or was it saying,
Or a strange musical instrument playing
In the chamber?—­and to be certain
I pushed the lattice, pulled the curtain,
And there lay Jacynth asleep,
Yet as if a watch she tried to keep,
In a rosy sleep along the floor
With her head against the door;
While in the midst, on the seat of state, 520
Was a queen-the Gipsy woman late,