No More Learning

Ah! he rushed upon his doom!

In the vale of Ronceval,
On the very spot where whilom
Charlemagne's peerless nephew
Gasped away his fleeting spirit,

There fell also Atta Troll,
Fell through treason, like the other,
Whom the traitor, knighthood's Judas,
Ganelon of Mainz, betrayed.


XI

Four gigantic men in triumph
Brought along the slaughtered Bear.
Upright sat he in an armchair,
Like a patient at the hot-wells.

That same day soon after skinning
Atta Troll, they up to auction
Put the skin. For just a hundred
Francs a furrier purchased it.

Elegantly then he trimmed it,
And he edged it round with scarlet,
And again he sold it quickly
Just for double what it cost.

So, at last, third hand possessed it--
Julietta, and at Paris
It reposes in her chamber,
Serving as a bed-side carpet.

What of Mumma? Ah, the Mumma
Is a poor weak woman! Frailty
Is her name! Alas, the women
Are as so much porcelain frail.

When the hand of Fate had parted
Mumma from her noble husband,
Neither did she die of sorrow,
Nor succumb to melancholy.

And at last a fixed appointment,
And for life a safe provision,
Far away she found at Paris
In the famed Jardin des Plantes.
Sunday last as I was walking
In the gardens with Julietta,
By the railing round the bear-pit--
Gracious Heavens! What saw we there!

'Twas a powerful desert bear
From Siberia, snow-white coated,
Playing there an over-tender,
Amorous game with some black she-bear.

And, by Jupiter! 'twas Mumma!
'Twas the wife of Atta Troll!
I remember her distinctly
By the moist eye's tender glances.


XII

Where in heaven, Master Louis,
Have you all this crazy nonsense
Scraped together? Such the question
Of the Cardinal of Este,

After having read the poem
Of Rolando's frenzied doings,
Which Ariosto with submission
To his Eminence dedicated.

Yes, Varnhagen, worthy friend,
Yes, I see the same words nearly
On thy lips this moment hanging
With the same sarcastic smile.

"Sounds this not like youthful visions,
Which I once dreamt with Chamisso
And Brentano and Fouque,
On those deep-blue moonlight evenings? "

Yes, my friend, it is the echo
Of those long-forgotten dream-days;
Only that a modern trilling
Mingles with the ancient cadence.

Other seasons, other songsters!
Other songsters, other ditties!
What a cackling, as of geese, which
Once preserved the Capitol!

Other seasons, other songsters!