Classic Poem

A SUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM.

CAPUTI.

Where the dark encircling mountains
Overtop each other proudly,
Lulled asleep by foaming torrents
Like a dream-begotten picture,

Cauterets, the haunt of fashion,
Nestles whitely in the valley;
On the balcomes the ladies,
Lovely ladies, laughing loudly,

Watch a bear and she-bear dancing
To the music of the bagpipes,
In the market-place below them
Where the motley crowd is surging.

It is Atta Troll who dances
With his mate, the swarthy Mumma,
And the wondering Biscayans
Shout and cheer them to the echo.

Stiff and earnest, grave and solemn,
Dances noble Atta Troll;
But his shaggy spouse is wanting
Both in carriage and decorum;

There is even in her dancing,
To my fancy, a suspicion
Of the cancan, and the license
Of the Grand'-Chaumiere at Paris.

Even the keeper, honest fellow.
By the chain who holds and leads her,
Marks a something scarcely moral
In the manner of her dancing.

And he often reaches over
With his whip to reprimand her;
Then the swarthy Mumma bellows
Till the mountain echoes waken.

On his pointed cap he carries
Six Madonnas to protect him
From the bullets of his foemen,
Or from lice to shield and guard him.

On his shoulder, brightly coloured
Hangs an altar-cloth that serves him
As a mantle; underneath it
Lurk the pistol and the dagger.

In his youth a monk, in manhood
He became a robber-captain;
Then, to join the two vocations,
Took the service of Don Carlos.

When Don Carlos fled, defeated,
With his Knights of the Round Table,
And his paladins were driven
To pursue an honest calling —

(One, Schnapphahnski, turned an author) —
Then our knight, the Faith's defender,
Started touring through the country,
Leading Atta Troll and Mumma,

Whom he forced to dance in public
On the open market-places:
In the square in fetters dances
Atta Troll at Cauterets!

Atta Troll, who once so proudly
Lodged, a monarch of the desert,
Free and high upon the mountains,
To the lowland rabble dances!

Must for money vile and sordid
Dance and foot it — he aforetime
So invincible and lofty
In the majesty of terror!

On his youth and vanished lordship
Of the forest when he muses,
Dismal growlings surge and rumble
From the soul of Atta Troll.

Grim he looks then, like some swarthy
Moorish prince of Freiligrath;
Bad the drumming of the one is,
Bad the dancing of the other.

But alas! he wakes no pity,
Only laughter. Even Juliet
From the balcony is laughing
At his sad despairing antics. —

Juliet lives upon the surface:
She is French, and shallow-hearted;
But, to look on, how delightful
And enchanting is my Juliet!

For her glances are a lovely
Net of sunbeams in whose meshes
Captive hearts, like little fishes,
Writhe with tenderness and longing.