Let frantic Talbot triumph for a while And like a peacock sweep along his tail; We'll pull his plumes and take away his train, If Dauphin and the rest will be but ruled.

Why, 'a stalks up and down like a peacock--a stride and a stand; ruminates like an hostess that hath no arithmetic but her brain to set down her reckoning; bites his lip with a politic regard, as who should say, 'There were wit in this head an 'twould out'; and so there is, but it lies as coldly in him as fire in a flint, which will not show without knocking.

Fly pride, says the peacock: mistress, that you know.

And there they placed a peacock in his pride, Before the damsel.

For everything seemed resting on his nod, As they could read in all eyes. Now to them, Who were accustomed, as a sort of god, To see the sultan, rich in many a gem, Like an imperial peacock stalk abroad (That royal bird, whose tail's a diadem,) With all the pomp of power, it was a doubt How power could condescend to do without.

To Paradise, the Arabs say, Satan could never find the way Until the peacock led him in.