UNE MARQUISE. A RHYMED MONOLOGUE IN THE LOUVRE. "Belle Marquise, vos beaux yeux me font mourir d'amour." Mute at every word you utter, Servants to your least frill flutter, MOLIÈRE. "Belle Marquise!” As you sit there growing prouder, And your ringed hands glance and go, And your 66 beaux yeux "flash and glow ;— Ah, you used them on the Painter, As you know, For the Sieur Larose spoke fainter, Bowing low, Thanked Madame and Heaven for Mercy That each sitter was not Circe, Or at least he told you so ; UNE MARQUISE. Growing proud, I say, and prouder Fickle Queen of Fop and Beau, Do we love you most or like you, "Belle Marquise !" II. You are fair; O yes, we know it Well, Marquise ; For he swore it, your last poet, On his knees; And he called all heaven to witness Of his ballad and its fitness, "Belle Marquise!”— You were everything in ère You were "Reine," and "Mère d'Amour"; 66 You were " Vénus à Cythère"; Sappho mise en Pompadour," And "Minerve en Parabère"; You had every grace of heaven In your most angelic face, 31 With the nameless finer leaven Lent of blood and courtly race; And he added, too, in duty, Ninon's wit and Boufflers' beauty; And La Vallière's yeux veloutés Followed these; And you liked it, when he said it (On his knees), And you kept it, and you read it, "Belle Marquise!" III. Yet with us your toilet graces Fail to please, And the last of your last faces, And your mise; For we hold you just as real, "Belle Marquise !" As your Bergers and Bergères, Calm and ease, As the Venus there, by Coustou, That a fan would make quite flighty, UNE MARQUISE. 33 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, No, Marquise! IV. For your Cupid, you have clipped him, Rouged and patched him, nipped and snipped him, "Belle Marquise !" Just to arm you through your wife-time, And the languors of your life-time, "Belle Marquise!” Say, to trim your toilet tapers, Or,-to twist your hair in papers, D Or,-to wean you from the vapours ;— You are worth the love they give you, Or a younger grace shall please; Till your frothed-out life's commotion 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; |