Page:Fugitive Poetry 1600-1878.djvu/459

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THE SECRET.
441
For such, a churlish, carping creed As that his majesty professed,I hold him of unkingly breed— Unless, in sooth, he spoke in jest;To me, few things have come to pass Of good event, but, I can trace—Thanks to the matron or the lass— Somewhere, a woman in the case.
Yet once, while gaily strolling where A vast Museum still displaysIts varied wealth of strange and rare, To charm, or to repel the gaze—I—to a lady (who denied The creed by laughing in my face)—Took up, for once, the Persian's side About a woman in the case.
Discoursing thus, we came upon A grim Egyptian mummy—deadSome centuries since. "'Tis Pharaoh's son— Perhaps—who knows?"—the lady said.No!—on the black sarcophagus A female name I stooped to trace;"Toujours les femmes! 'Tis ever thus— There is a woman in the case!"
The Secret.
In a fair lady's heart once a secret was lurking, It tossed and it tumbled, it longed to get out,The lips half-betrayed it by smiling and smirking, And. tongue was impatient to blab it, no doubt.
But honour looked gruff on the subject, and gave it In charge to the teeth, so enchantingly white,Should the captive attempt an elopement, to save it By giving the lips an admonishing bite.
'Twas said and 'twas settled, and honour departed, Tongue quivered and trembled, but dared not rebel,When right to its tip secret suddenly started, And half in a whisper escaped from its cell.
Quoth the teeth, in a pet, "We'll be even for this," And they bit very smartly above and beneath,But the lips at that instant were bribed with a kiss, And they popped out the secret in spite of the teeth.
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