“The music of Midsummer-madness Shall sting him with many a bite, Till, in rapture of rollicking sadness, He shall groan with a gloomy delight: He shall swathe him, like mists of the morning, In platitudes luscious and limp, Such as deck, with a deathless adorning, The Song of the Shrimp!
“When the Ducklet’s dark doom is decided, We will trundle him home in a trice: And the banquet, so plainly provided, Shall round into rose-buds and rice: In a blaze of pragmatic invention He shall wrestle with Fate, and shall reign: But he has not a friend fit to mention, So hit him again!”
He has shot it, the delicate darling! And the Voices have ceased from their strife: Not a whisper of sneering or snarling; As he carries it home to his wife: Then, cheerily champing the bunlet His spouse was so skilful to bake, He hies him once more to the runlet, To fetch her the Drake!
“He’s sound asleep now,” said Sylvie, carefully tucking in the edge of a violet-leaf, which she had been spreading over him as a sort of blanket: “good night!”
“You may well say ‘good night’!” laughed Lady Muriel, rising and shutting up the piano as she spoke. “When you’ve been nid—nid—nodding all the time I’ve been singing for your benefit! What was it all about, now?” she demanded imperiously.
“Something about a duck?” I hazarded. “Well, a bird of some kind?” I corrected myself, perceiving at once that _that_ guess was wrong, at any rate.
“_Something about a bird of some kind!_” Lady Muriel repeated, with as much withering scorn as her sweet face was capable of conveying. “And that’s the way he speaks of Shelley’s Sky-Lark, is it? When the Poet particularly says ‘_Hail to thee, blithe spirit!_ Bird _thou never wert_!’”
She led the way to the smoking-room, where, ignoring all the usages of Society and all the instincts of Chivalry, the three Lords of the Creation reposed at their ease in low rocking-chairs, and permitted the one lady who was present to glide gracefully about among us, supplying our wants in the form of cooling drinks, cigarettes, and lights. Nay, it was only _one_ of the three who had the chivalry to go beyond the common-place “thank you,” and to quote the Poet’s exquisite description of how Geraint, when waited on by Enid, was moved