"In the time of King James I, the aged Countess of Desmond met her death, at the age of a hundred and forty years, through falling from an apple-tree." -- @3Chronicles of the times.@1 IN the cold wind, towers grind round, Turning, turning, on the ground; In among the plains of corn Each tower seems a unicorn. Beneath a sad umbrageous tree Anne, the goose-girl, could I see -- But the umbrageous tree behind Ne'er cast a shadow on her mind -- A goose-round breast she had, goose-brains, And a nose longer than a crane's; A clarinet sound, cold, forlorn, Her harsh hair, straight as yellow corn, And her eyes were round, inane As the blue pebbles of the rain. Young Anne, the goose-girl, said to me, "There's been a sad catastrophe! The aged Countess still could walk At a hundred and forty years, could talk, And every eve in the crystal cool Would walk by the side of the clear fish-pool. But to-day when the Countess took her walk Beneath the apple-trees, from their stalk The apples fell like the red-gold crown Of those kings that the Countess had lived down, And they fell into the crystal pool; The grandmother fish enjoying the cool -- (Like the bright queens dyed on a playing-card They seemed as they fanned themselves, flat and hard) -- Floated in long and chequered gowns And darting, searched for the red-gold crowns In the Castles drowned long ago Where the empty years pass weedy-slow, And the water is flat as equality That reigns over all in the heavenly State we aspire to, where none can choose Which is the goose-girl, which is the goose . . . But the Countess climbed up the apple-tree, Only to see what she could see -- Because to persons of her rank The usual standpoint is that of the bank! . . ." The goose-girl smoothed down her feather-soft Breast . . . "When the Countess came aloft, King James and his courtiers, dressed in smocks, Rode by a-hunting the red-gold fox, And King James, who was giving the view-halloo Across the corn, too loudly blew, And the next that happened was -- what did I see But the Countess fall'n from the family tree! Yet King James could only see it was naughty To aspire to the high at a hundred and forty, 'Though if' (as he said) 'she aspired to climb To Heaven -- she certainly has, this time!'" . . . And Anne, the goose-girl, laughed, "Tee-hee, It was a sad catastrophe!" |