The penultimate chapter, in which, dismissed by The King, The Fool comes over to me (The Poet) to cause mischief in my lonely corner of the court.

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The Fool strut unto me with sobbing frame
Then winked, dry-eyed, reveal’ng to me his game,
And I sighed, deeply, knowing what mischief came
When such a force was in a mood to play
With only one to share the disarray
Of scutter’ng clouds that blew within his mind
Forming to substance rarely, being blind
To matters not satirical in kind.
“Why, poetaster, won’t you poetize
A sonnet for The Prince to win the prize:
The hand of that fair maiden, German-born,
Lest he be left alone to buff his horn.”
So said The Fool before I countered back,
“Methinks he needs not I for love’s attack,
For evidently she is his already.”
“Truly? O, how romantic!” squealed he,
Gripping my arms to dance, yet when rebuffed,
Puppet’ng my hand, his occiput he cuffed,
Knocking his bell-sewn hat straight o’er his eyes,
“I cannot see their love. You tell me lies!”
I fixed his hat and see’ng he said, “’Tis true!
‘Tis though each drunk of Aphrodite’s brew!
Yet, O, how careful do their miens conceal
That which their hearts are bursting to reveal.”
“Thou art poetical at times,” I said,
“When clutching at a melancholy thread.”
As if to break this spell he snatched my book,
An’ with voice, sermonic, staged a priestly look.
With pages open resting in one hand
He judged my work with this long reprimand,
“Thou art heretically poetical;
Too trite when trying metaphorical,
When not held back by rules empirical,
And rhythmically, O, too numerical,
Yet metrically, I sense, non-sensical,
With rhymes, a touch too much rhetorical,
And themes like dreams too ahistorical,
And forced when versing philosophical,
But round-a-bout when categorical,
With characters too oratorical
In frames too proudly allegorical,
Where imagery too atmospherical
Falls quick to phantasmagorical,
With humour lacking wit satirical,
While self-awarely panegyrical.
Thus are your sins sized cosmological
And shall be purged as pathological.”
Thus said, he signed the cross and threw my book
Over his shoulder into a brazier’s nook,
Where, luckily, it missed the open flame
And fell onto the floor to lie in shame.
He shrugged when glancing back, “My aim is poor
Or ‘haps the devil blew it to the floor.”
I’d seen The Fool perform most dextrously,
Time and again, so knew he’d consciously
Missed as a sign that all could be redeemed
If better would my poetry be themed.
I humbly fetched my book and, thankful, sighed,
And gave The Fool a look which wished to chide.
His gaze, however, lay upon the throne
Where matters caused his foolish throat to groan
That he was missing out on all the action
And felt the King required his distraction.
For, looking on as well, I saw unfold
Events that made my muse’s blood run cold.