Is to her the gods were used to, Sprung from seas. You are just a porcelain trifle, "Belle Marquise!" Just a thing of puffs and patches, Made for madrigals and catches, Not for heart-wounds, but for scratches, O Marquise ! Just a pinky porcelain trifle, "Belle Marquise! Wrought in rarest rose-Dubarry, Quick at verbal point and parry, No, Marquise ! IV. For your Cupid, you have clipped him, Rouged and patched him, nipped and snipped him. And with chapeau-bras equipped him, Just to arm you through your wife-time, "Belle Marquise !" "Belle Marquise!" Say, to trim your toilet tapers, And the languors of your life-time, Or, to twist your hair in papers, Or, to wean you from the vapours; You are worth the love they give you, Or a younger grace shall please; "Belle Marquise!' Till your frothed-out life's commotion Settles down to Ennui's ocean, Or a dainty sham devotion, "Belle Marquise!" V. No we neither like nor love you, "Belle Marquise !” Lesser lights we place above you, — We have passed from Philosophe-dom Without malice whatsoever,- To be rather good than clever; For we find it hard to smother "Belle Marquise !" THE STORY OF ROSINA. AN INCIDENT IN THE LIFE OF FRANÇOIS BOUCHER. THE "On ne badine pas avec l'amour." HE scene, a wood. A shepherd tip-toe creeping, Carries a basket, whence a billet peeps, To lay beside a silk-clad Oread sleeping Under an urn; yet not so sound she sleeps But that she plainly sees his graceful act ; "He thinks she thinks he thinks she sleeps," in fact. One hardly needs the "Peint par François Boucher." one sees All the sham life comes back again, The little great, the infinite small thing That ruled the hour when Louis Quinze was king. For these were yet the days of halcyon weather, — A "Martin's summer", when the nation swam, Aimless and easy as a wayward feather, Down the full tide of jest and epigram; A careless time, when France's bluest blood Plain Roland still was placidly "inspecting," Corday unborn, and Lamballe in Savoie ; wrung Want from the soil; lean things with livid features, Shape of bent man, and voice that never sung: These were the Ants, for yet to Jacques Bonhomme Tumbrils were not, nor any sound of drum. But Boucher was a Grasshopper, and painted, - The crowned Caprice, whose sceptre, nowise sainted, Swayed the light realm of ballets and bon mots; Ruled the dim boudoir's demi-jour, or drove grove. A laughing Dame, who sailed a laughing cargo Of flippant loves along the Fleuve du Tendre; 1 |