Volume II Part 49 (2/2)
You ha'nt so much as let me comb your hair This last three days and more.
MARIAN
Well, comb it, Jenny, Now, if you like, and comb it all day long; But don't get crabbed, and don't speak so crossly!
[_JENNY begins loosening MARIAN'S hair and combing it._]
JENNY
Why, Mistress, it grows longer every day.
It's far below your knees, and how it s.h.i.+nes!
And wavy, just like Much the Miller's brook, Where it comes tumbling out into the sun, Like gold, red gold.
MARIAN
Ah, that's provoking, Jenny, For you forgot to bring me my steel gla.s.s, And, if you chatter so, I shall soon want it.
JENNY
I've found a very good one at a pinch.
There's a smooth silver pool, down in the stream, Where you can see your face most beautiful.
MARIAN
So that's how Jenny spends her lonely hours, A sad female Narcissus, while poor Much Dwines to an Echo!
JENNY
I don't like those G.o.ds.
I never cared for them. But, as for Much, Much is the best of all the merry men.
And, mistress, O, he speaks so beautifully, It _might_ be just an Echo from blue hills Far, far away! You see he's quite a scholar: Much, more an' most (That's what he calls the three Greasy caparisons--much, more an' most)!
You see they thought that being so very small They could not make him grow to be a man, They'd make a scholar of him instead. The Friar Taught him his letters. He can write his name, And mine, and yours, just like a missal book, In lovely colours; and he always draws The first big letter of JENNY like a tree With naked Cupids hiding in the branches.
Mistress, I don't believe you hear one word I ever speak to you! Your eyes are always That far and far away.
MARIAN
I'm listening, Jenny!
JENNY
Well, when he draws the first big M of yours, He makes it like a bridge from earth to heaven, With white-winged angels pa.s.sing up and down; And, underneath the bridge, in a black stream, He puts the drowning face of the bad Prince Holding his wicked hands out, while a devil Stands on the bank and with a pointed stake Keeps him from landing-- Ah, what's that? What's that?
MARIAN
O Jenny, how you startled me!
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