His ears up pricked; his braided hanging mane
Upon his compassed* crest now stand on end;†
His nostrils drink the air,‡ and forth again,
As from a furnace, vapours doth he send :§
His eye, which scornfully glisters like fire,
Shows his hot courage and his high desire.
Sometime he trots, as if he told the steps,
With gentle majesty and modest pride;
Anon he rears upright, curvets and leaps,
As who should say, Lo! thus my strength is tried;
And this I do to captivate the eye
Of the fair breeder that is standing by.
What recketh he his rider's angry stir,
His flattering 'holla !'|| or his 'Stand, I say?'
What cares he now for curb, or pricking spur?
For rich caparisons, or trapping gay?
He sees his love, and nothing else he sees,
For nothing else with his proud sight agrees.
Look, when a painter would surpass the life,
In limning out a well-proportioned steed,
His art with nature's workmanship at strife,
As if the dead the living should exceed;
* Representing the segment of a circle as drawn by a pair of compasses. Thus the bow window was called compassed window :
She came to him the other day in the compassed window.
† Mane, as composed of a number of hairs, is here used in the plural.
Make sacred even his stirrup, and through him
Drink the free air.-Timon of Athens, i. I.
And though we have it with a root, thus backed
The air will drink the sap.-Henry VIII. i. 2.
I drink the air before me.-Tempest, v. 2.
The thick sighs from him.-Cymbeline, i. 7.
A call, or exclamation, to arrest attention-to stop; equivalent to the French hola, stop or end. In this sense it is expressly used in the following passage:
Cry holla to thy tongue, I prithee.-As You Like it, iii. 2.
So did this horse excel a common one,
In shape, in courage, colour, pace, and bone.
Round-hoofed, short-jointed, fetlocks shag and long,
Broad breast, full eye, small head, and nostril wide,
High crest, short ears, straight legs, and passing strong,
Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide :
Look, what a horse should have, he did not lack,
Save a proud rider on so proud a back.
Sometime he scuds far off, and there he stares;
Anon he starts at stirring of a feather;
To bid the wind a base* he now prepares,
And whe'r he run or fly, they know not whether;
For through his mane and tail the high wind sings,
Fanning the hairs, who wave like feathered wings.
He looks upon his love, and neighs unto her;
She answers him, as if she knew his mind:
Being proud, as females are, to see him woo her,
She puts on outward strangeness,† seems unkind;
Spurns at his love, and scorns the heat he feels,
Beating his kind embracements with her heels.
Then, like a melancholy malecontent,
He vails his tail, that, like a falling plume,
To challenge the wind to a contest for superiority. Base is a rustic game, sometimes termed prison-base, properly prison-bars.-MALONE. The original name of the game was Country Base, as we find it mentioned elsewhere:
The country base, than to commit such slaughter.
Drayton alludes to it under the name of prison-base :-
At hood-wink, barley-brake, at tick, or prison-base.
And it was commonly known as Base. Thus Spenser:-
So ran they all as they had been at bace.
† Shyness, reserve, coyness. Lowers.
Vailing her high top lower than her ribs.-Mer. of Venice, i. 1.
Cool shadow to his melting buttock lent:
He stamps, and bites the poor flies in his fume,
His love, perceiving how he is enraged,
Grew kinder, and his fury was assuaged.
His testy master goeth about to take him;
When, lo, the unbacked breeder, full of fear,
Jealous of catching, swiftly doth forsake him,
With her the horse, and left Adonis there:
As they were mad, unto the wood they hie them;
Outstripping crows, that strive to overfly them.
All swoln with chasing, down Adonis sits,
Banning* his boisterous and unruly beast;
And now the happy season once more fits,
That love-sick Love by pleading may be blessed;
For lovers say, the heart hath treble wrong,
When it is barred the aidance of the tongue.
An oven that is stopped, or river stayed,
Burneth more hotly, swelleth with more rage:
So of concealed sorrow may be said;
Free vent of words love's fire doth assuage;
But when the heart's attorney t once is mute,
The client breaks, as desperate in his suit.
He sees her coming, and begins to glow,
Even as a dying coal revives with wind;
And with his bonnet hides his angry brow;
Looks on the dull earth with disturbed mind;
Taking no notice that she is so nigh,
For all askaunce he holds her in his eye.
The tongue. Thus in Richard III.—
Therefore, dear mother, (I must call you so,)
Be the attorney of my love to her.
Plead what I will be, &c.-iv. 4.
Why should calamity be full of words?
Windy attorneys to their client woes.-Ib.
O, what a sight it was, wistly* to view
How she came stealing to the wayward boy!
To note the fighting conflict of her hue!
How white and red each other did destroy!+
But now, her cheek was pale; and by and by
It flashed forth fire, as lightning from the sky.
Now was she just before him as he sat,
And like a lowly lover down she kneels;
With one fair hand she heaveth up his hat,
Her other tender hand his fair cheek feels:
His tenderer cheek receives her soft hand's print,
As apt as new-fallen snow takes any dint.
O, what a war of looks was then between them!
Her eyes, petitioners, to his eyes suing;
eyes as they had not seen them; Her eyes wooed still, his eyes disdained the wooing : And all this dumb play had his acts made plain With tears, which, chorus-like, her eyes did rain.
Full gently now she takes him by the hand,
A lily prisoned in a jail of snow,
Or ivory in an alabaster band;
So white a friend engirts so white a foe:
This beauteous combat, wilful and unwilling,
Showed like two silver doves that sat a-billing.
Once more the engine of her thoughts began:—
‘O fairest mover on this mortal round,
Would thou wert as I am, and I a man ;
My heart all whole as thine, thy heart my wound; §
For one sweet look thy help I would assure thee,
Though nothing but my body's bane would cure
thee.'
+ Such war of white and red within her cheeks.
Taming of the Shrew, iv. 5. Thy heart wounded as mine is.-MALONE.
'Give me my hand,' saith he: 'why dost thou feel it?'
'Give me my heart,' saith she, 'and thou shalt have it:
O, give it me, lest thy hard heart do steel it,*
And being steeled, soft sighs can never gravet it:
Then love's deep groans I never shall regard,
Because Adonis' heart hath made mine hard.'
'For shame,' he cries: 'let go, and let me go:
My day's delight is past, my horse is gone;
And 'tis your fault I am bereft him so :
I pray you, hence, and leave me here alone:
For all my mind, my thought, my busy care,
Is how to get my palfrey from the mare.'
Thus she replies:-'Thy palfrey, as he should,
Welcomes the warm approach of sweet desire:
Affection is a coal that must be cooled;
Else, suffered, it will set the heart on fire:
The sea hath bounds, but deep desire hath none; Therefore no marvel though thy horse be gone. 'How like a jade he stood, tied to the tree, Servilely mastered with a leathern rein! But when he saw his love, his youth's fair fee, He held such petty bondage in disdain;
Throwing the base thong from his bending crest;
Enfranchising his mouth, his back, his breast.
'Who sees his true love in her naked bed,
Teaching the sheets a whiter hue than white,
But, when his glutton eye so full hath fed,
His other agents aim at like delight?
Who is so faint, that dare not be so bold,
To touch the fire, the weather being cold?
'Let me excuse thy courser, gentle boy;
And learn of him, I heartily beseech thee,
Thou dost stone my heart.—v. 2.
† Engrave.
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