So, in the Louvre, the passer-by might spy some Arch-looking head, with half-evasive air, Start from behind the fruitage of Van Huysum, Grape-bunch and melon, nectarine and pear:Here 'twas no Venus of Batavian city, But a French girl, young, piquante, bright, and pretty. Graceful she was, as some slim marsh-flower shaken Black was her hair as any blackbird's feather; Sloes were her eyes; but her soft cheeks were peaches, Up till the blush had vanquished all the brown, And, like two birds, the sudden lids dropped down. As Boucher smiled, the bright black eyes ceased dancing, As Boucher spoke, the dainty red eclipse Filled all the face from cheek to brow, enhancing Half a shy smile that dawned around the lips. Then a shrill mother rose upon the view; "Cerises, M'sieu? Rosine, dépêchez-vous!" Deep in the fruit her hands Rosina buries, "Woo first the mother, if you'd win the daughter!" Leave to immortalize a face so fair; Shy at the first, in time Rosina's laughter Just a mere child with sudden ebullitions, Only a child, of Nature's rarest making, Wistful and sweet,—and with a heart for breaking! 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,- Loved if you will; she never named it so: 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; Men called her pretty." Boucher looked a minute : Meantime the Painter, with a mixed emotion, Drew and re-drew his ill-disguised Marquise, Thrice-happy France, whose facile sons inherit Power to enjoy-with yet a rarer merit, ོན G Power to forget! Our Boucher rose, I say, With hand still prest to heart, with pulses throbbing, P And blankly stared at poor Rosina sobbing. "This was no model, M'sieu, but a lady." Boucher was silent, for he knew it true. 56 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 Rosina! By To-morrow stricken, Swift from her life the sun of gold declined. Only a little by the door she lingers,— 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? |