ON A FAN THAT BELONGED TO THE MARQUISE DE POMPADOUR

C

`HICKEN-SKIN, delicate, white,

Painted by Carlo Vanloo,

Loves in a riot of light,

Roses and vaporous blue;

Hark to the dainty frou-frou !

Picture above, if you can,

Eyes that could melt as the dew,

This was the Pompadour's fan!

See how they rise at the sight,

Thronging the Eil de Bauf through,
Courtiers as butterflies bright,

Beauties that Fragonard drew,
Talon-rouge, falbala, queue,
Cardinal, Duke, to a man,
Eager to sigh or to sue,—
This was the Pompadour's fan!

Ah, but things more than polite
Hung on this toy, voyez-vous!
Matters of state and of might,

Things that great ministers do;
Things that, maybe, overthrew

Those in whose brains they began; Here was the sign and the cue,— This was the Pompadour's fan!

ENVOY.

WHERE are the secrets it knew? Weavings of plot and of plan? -But where is the Pompadour, too? This was the Pompadour's Fan!

VA BALLAD TO QUEEN ELIZABETH

of the Spanish Armada

ING PHILIP had vaunted his claims;

KIN

He had sworn for a year he would sack us,

With an army of heathenish names

He was coming to fagot and stack us;

Like the thieves of the sea he would track us,

And shatter our ships on the main ;

But we had bold Neptune to back us,— And where are the galleons of Spain?

His carackes were christened of dames
To the kirtles whereof he would tack us;
With his saints and his gilded stern-frames,
He had thought like an egg-shell to crack us;
Now Howard may get to his Flaccus,

And Drake to his Devon again,

And Hawkins bowl rubbers to Bacchus,For where are the galleons of Spain?

Let his Majesty hang to St. James
The axe that he whetted to hack us;
He must play at some lustier games

Or at sea he can hope to out-thwack us;
To his mines of Peru he would pack us

To tug at his bullet and chain;

Alas! that his Greatness should lack us But where are the galleons of Spain?

ENVOY.

GLORIANA! the Don may attack us Whenever his stomach be fain;

He must reach us before he can rack us, And where are the galleons of Spain?

A BALLAD OF HEROES

"Now all your victories are in vain.”

-MARY F. ROBINSON.

BECAUSE you passed, and now are not,—

Because, in some remoter day,

Your sacred dust from doubtful spot
Was blown of ancient airs away,—
Because you perished,—must men say
Your deeds were naught, and so profane
Your lives with that cold burden? Nay,
The deeds you wrought are not in vain!

Though, it may be, above the plot
That hid your once imperial clay,
No greener than o'er men forgot
The unregarding grasses sway;
Though there no sweeter is the lay
From careless bird,-though you remain
Without distinction of decay,-
The deeds you wrought are not in vain!

No. For while yet in tower or cot
Your story stirs the pulses' play;
And men forget the sordid lot—
The sordid care, of cities gray ;—
While yet, beset in homelier fray,