How a Beauty Was Waked and Her Suitor Was Suited

Albeit wholly penniless,Prince Charming wasn’t any lessConceited than a Croesusor a modern millionaire:Though often in necessity,No one would ever guess it. HeWas candidly insolvent,and he frankly didn’t care!Of the many debts he madeNot a one was ever paid,But no one ever pressed himto refund the borrowed gold:While he recklessly kept spending,People gladly kept on lending,For the fact they knew a titleWas requitalTwenty-fold!(He lived in sixteen sixty-three,This smooth unblushing article,Since when, as far as I can see,Men haven’t changed a particle!)

In Charming’s principalityThere was a wild locality,Composed of sombre forest,and of steep and frowning crags,Of pheasant and of rabbit, too;And here it was his habit toGo hunting with his courtiersin the keen pursuit of stags.But the charger that he rodeSo mercurially strodeThat the prince on one occasionleft the others in the lurch,And the falling darkness found him,With no vassals left around him,Near a building like an abbey,Or a shabbyRuined church.His Highness said: “I’ll ring the bellAnd stay till morning in it!” (HeTook Hobson’s choice, for no hotelThere was in the vicinity.)

His ringing was so vehementThat any one could see he meantTo suffer no refusal, but,in spite of all the din,There was no answer audible,And so, with courage laudable,His Royal Highness turned the knob,and stoutly entered in.Then he strode across the court,But he suddenly stopped shortWhen he passed within the castleby a massive oaken door:There were courtiers without number,But they all were plunged in slumber,The prince’s ear delightingBy unitingIn a snore.The prince remarked: “This must be Phil-adelphia, Pennsylvania!”(And so was born the jest that’s stillThe comic journal’s mania!)

With torpor reprehensible,Numb, comatose, insensible,The flunkeys and the chamberlainsall slumbered like the dead,And snored so loud and mournfully,That Charming passed them scornfullyAnd came to where a princesslay asleep upon a bed.She was so extremely fairThat His Highness didn’t careFor the risk, and so he kissed herere a single word he spoke: —In a jiffy maids and pages,Ushers, lackeys, squires, and sages,As fresh as if they’d been at leastA week awake,Awoke,And hastened, bustled, dashed and ranUp stairways and through galleries:In brief, they one and all beganAgain to earn their salaries!

Aroused from her paralysis,As if in deep analysisOf him who had awakened her,the princess met his eye:Her glance at first was critical,And sternly analytical.And then she dropped her lashesand she gave a little sigh.As he watched her, wholly dumb,She observed: “You doubtless comeFor one of two good reasons,and I’m going to ask you which.Do you mean my house to harry,Or do you propose to marry?”He answered: “I may rue it,But I’ll do it,If you’re rich!The princess murmured with a smile:“I’ve millions, at the least, to come!”The prince cried: “Please excuse me, whileI go and get the priest to come!”

The Moral: When affairs go illThe sleeping partner foots the bill.