F

COLINETTE

RANCE your country, as we know;
Room enough for guessing yet,
What lips now or long ago,

Kissed and named you-Colinette.
In what fields from sea to sea,

By what stream your home was set, Loire or Seine was glad of thee, Marne or Rhone, O Colinette?

Did you stand with "maidens ten,
Fairer maids were never seen,"
When the young king and his men
Passed among the orchards green?
Nay, old ballads have a note

Mournful we would fain forget;
No such sad old air should float
Round your young brows, Colinette.

Say, did Ronsard sing to you,

Shepherdess to lull his pain,

When the court went wandering through

Rose pleasances of Touraine?

Ronsard and his famous Rose

Long are dust the breezes fret;

You, within the garden close,
You are blooming, Colinette.

Have I seen you proud and gay,
With a patched and perfumed beau,
Dancing through the summer day,
Misty summer of Watteau ?
Nay, so sweet a maid as you
Never walked a minuet
With the splendid courtly crew;
Nay, forgive me, Colinette.

Not from Greuze's canvases
Do you cast a glance, a smile;
You are not as one of these,

Yours is beauty without guile.
Round your maiden brows and hair
Maidenhood and Childhood met,
Crown and kiss you, sweet and fair,
New art's blossom, Colinette.

Andrew Lang.

N

BALLADE OF DEAD LADIES

(After Villon)

AY, tell me now in what strange air The Roman Flora dwells to-day; Where Archippiada hides, and where Beautiful Thais has passed away? Whence answers Echo, afield, astray, By mere or stream,-around, below? Lovelier she than a woman of clay; Nay, but where is the last year's snow?

Where is wise Héloise, that care
Brought on Abeilard, and dismay?
All for her love he found a snare,
A maimed poor monk in orders grey;
And where's the Queen who willed to slay
Buridan, that in a sack must go

Afloat down Seine, a perilous way-
Nay, but where is the last year's snow?

Where's that White Queen, a lily rare,
With her sweet song, the Siren's lay?
Where's Bertha Broad-foot, Beatrice fair?
Alys and Ermengarde, where are they?
Good Joan, whom English did betray
In Rouen town, and burned her? No,
Maiden and Queen, no man may say;
Nay, but where is the last year's snow?

ENVOY

Prince, all this week thou need'st not pray,
Nor yet this year the thing to know.
One burden answers, ever and aye,
"Nay, but where is the last year's snow?"
Andrew Lang.

K

IL BACIO

ISS! Hollyhock in Love's luxuriant close! Brisk music played on pearly little keys, In tempo with the witching melodies Love in the ardent heart repeating goes.

Sonorous, graceful Kiss, hail! Kiss divine!
Unequalled boon, unutterable bliss!

Man, bent o'er thine enthralling chalice, Kiss, Grows drunken with a rapture only thine!

Thou comfortest as music does, and wine,
And grief dies smothered in thy purple fold.
Let one greater than I, Kiss, and more bold,
Rear thee a classic, monumental line.

Humble Parisian bard, this infantile

Bouquet of rhymes I tender half in fear.. Be gracious, and in guerdon, on the dear Red lips of One I know, a light and smile! Paul Verlaine.

"Th

SUR L'HERBE

HE abbé rambles."-"You, marquis,
Have put your wig on all awry.'
"This wine of Cypress kindles me
Less, my Camargo, than your eye!"

66

si.".

"My passion"-“Do, mi, sol, la,
Abbé, your villainy lies bare.".
"Mesdames, I climb up yonder tree
And fetch a star down, I declare."

"Let each kiss his own lady, then

The others."-"Would that I were, too,

A lap-dog!"-"Softly, gentlemen!”—

"Do, mi."—"The moon!-Hey, how d'ye do?"

Paul Verlaine.

THE ROMANCE OF A GLOVE

H

ERE on my desk it lies,
Here as the daylight dies,
One small glove just her size-

Six and a quarter;

Pearly gray, a colour neat,
Deux boutons all complete,

Faint scented, soft and sweet;
Could glove be smarter?

Can I the day forget,

Years ago, when the pet

Gave it me?-where we met

Still I remember;

Then 'twas the summer time;
Now as I write this rhyme
Children love pantomime—
'Tis December.

Fancy my boyish bliss
Then when she gave me this,
And how the frequent kiss
Crumpled its fingers;

Then she was fair and kind,
Now, when I've changed my mind,
Still some scent undefined

On the glove lingers.