Day after day the little loving creature

Came and returned; and still the Painter felt, Day after day, the old theatric Nature

Fade from his sight, and like a shadow melt Paniers and Powder, Pastoral and Scene, Killed by the simple beauty of Rosine.

As for the girl, she turned to her new being,-
Came, as a bird that hears its fellow call;
Blessed, as the blind that blesses God for seeing;
Grew, as a flower on which the sun-rays fall;
Loved if you will; she never named it so:
Love comes unseen,-we only see it go.

There is a figure among Boucher's sketches,

Slim, a child-face, the eyes as black as beads, Head set askance, and hand that shyly stretches Flowers to the passer, with a look that pleads. This was no other than Rosina surely ;—

None Boucher knew could else have looked so purely.

But forth her Story, for I will not tarry,

Whether he loved the little "nut-brown maid";

If, of a truth, he counted this to carry

Straight to the end, or just the whim obeyed, Nothing we know, but only that before

More had been done, a finger tapped the door.

Opened Rosina to the unknown comer.

'Twas a young girl—“ une pauvre fille," she said, "They had been growing poorer all the summer;

Father was lame, and mother lately dead; Bread was so dear, and,-oh! but want was bitter, Would Monsieur pay to have her for a sitter?

Men called her pretty." Boucher looked a minute :
Yes, she was pretty; and her face beside
Shamed her poor clothing by a something in it,—
Grace, and a presence hard to be denied ;
This was no common offer it was certain ;—

66

Allez, Rosina! sit behind the curtain."

Meantime the Painter, with a mixed emotion,
Drew and re-drew his ill-disguised Marquise,
Passed in due time from praises to devotion;
Last when his sitter left him on his knees,
Rose in a maze of passion and surprise,—
Rose, and beheld Rosina's saddened eyes.

Thrice-happy France, whose facile sons inherit
Still in the old traditionary way,
Power to enjoy-with yet a rarer merit,

Power to forget Our Boucher rose, I

say,

With hand still prest to heart, with pulses throbbing, And blankly stared at poor Rosina sobbing.

"This was no model, M'sieu, but a lady." Boucher was silent, for he knew it true.

"Est-ce que vous l'aimez?" Never answer made he! Ah, for the old love fighting with the new ! "Est-ce que vous l'aimez?" sobbed Rosina's sorrow. "Bon!" murmured Boucher; "she will come to-morrow."

How like a Hunter thou, O Time, dost harry

Us, thine oppressed, and pleasured with the chase, Sparest to strike thy sorely-running quarry,

Following not less with unrelenting face.

Time, if Love hunt, and Sorrow hunt, with thee,
Woe to the Fawn! There is no way to flee.

Woe to Rosina! By To-morrow stricken,

Swift from her life the sun of gold declined.
Nothing remained but those gray shades that thicken,
Cloud and the cold,-the loneliness-the wind.

Only a little by the door she lingers,-
Waits, with wrung lip and interwoven fingers.

No, not a sign. Already with the Painter

Grace and the nymphs began recovered reign; Truth was no more, and Nature, waxing fainter, Paled to the old sick Artifice again.

Seeing Rosina going out to die,

How should he know what Fame had passed him by?

Going to die! For who shall waste in sadness,
Shorn of the sun, the very warmth and light,
Miss the green welcome of the sweet earth's gladness,
Lose the round life that only Love makes bright:
There is no succour if these things are taken.
None but Death loves the lips by Love forsaken.

So, in a little, when those Two had parted,— Tired of himself, and weary as before, Boucher remembering, sick and sorry-hearted, Stayed for a moment by Rosina's door. “Ah, the poor child !" the neighbours cry of her, "Morte, M'sieu, morte! On dit,—des peines du cœur!”

Just for a second, say, the tidings shocked him,
Say, in his eye a sudden tear-drop shone,—
Just for a second a dull feeling mocked him

With a vague sense of something priceless gone;
Then, for at best 'twas but the empty type,

The husk of man with which the days were ripe,—

Then, he forgot her. But, for you that slew her,
You, her own sister, that with airy ease,

Just for a moment's fancy could undo her,
Pass on your way. A little while, Marquise,

Be the sky silent, be the sea serene;

A pleasant passage à Sainte Guillotine!

As for Rosina,-for the quiet sleeper,

Whether stone hides her, or the happy grass, If the sun quickens, if the dews beweep her, Laid in the Madeleine or Montparnasse, Nothing we know,-but that her heart is cold,

Poor beating heart! And so the story's told.