How a Princess Was Wooed from Habitual Sadness

In days of old the King of SaxeHad singular opinions,For with a weighty battle-axeHe brutalized his minions,And, when he’d nothing to employHis mind, he chose a village,And with an air of savage joyDelivered it to pillage.

But what aroused within his breastA rage well-nigh primevalWas, most of all, his daughter, dressedIn fashion medievalThe gowns that pleased this maiden’s eyeWere simple as Utopia,And for a hat she had a highInverted cornucopia.

In all her life she’d never smiled,Her sadness was abysmalThe boisterous monarch found his childUnutterably dismal.He therefore said the prince who madeHer laughter from its shell come,Besides in ducats being paid,Might wed the girl, and welcome!

I ought to say, ere I forget,She was uncommon comely—(Who ever read a Grimm tale yet,In which the girl was homely?)And so the King’s announcement drewNine princes in a column.But all in vain. The princess grew,If anything, more solemn.

One read her “Innocents Abroad,”The next wore clothes eccentric,The third one swallowed half his sword,As in the circus-tent trick.Thus eight of them into her coolReserve but deeper shoved her:There was but one authentic fool—The prince who really loved her!

He’d alternate between the heightOf hope and deep abasement,He caught distressing colds at night,By watching ’neath her casement:He did what I have done, I know,And you, I do not doubt it, —Instead of bottling up his woe,He bored his friends about it!

In brooding on the ways of FateLong hours he daily wasted,His food remained upon his plate,’T was scarcely touched or tasted:He said the bitter things of love,All lovers, save a few, say,And learned by heart the verses ofSwinburne, and A. de Musset!

This attitude his wished-for brideTo silent laughter goaded,Until he talked of suicide,And then the girl exploded!“You make me laugh, and so,” she said,“I’ll marry you next season.”(Not half the people who are wedHave half so good a reason!)

The Moral: The deliberate clownCan never beat love’s barriers down:’T is better to be like the owl,Comic because so grave a fowlFrom him we well may take our cue—By him be taught, to wit, to woo!