ON A FAN THAT BELONGED TO THE MARQUISE DE POMPADOUR

CHIC

'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 Bœuf 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!

A BALLAD TO QUEEN ELIZABETH

of the Spanish Armada

K

ING PHILIP had vaunted his claims;

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?

THE BALLAD OF PROSE AND

WHE

RHYME

HEN the ways are heavy with mire and rut,

In November fogs, in December snows, When the North Wind howls, and the doors are shut,―

There is place and enough for the pains of prose; But whenever a scent from the whitethorn

blows,

And the jasmine-stars at the casement climb,

And a Rosalind-face at the lattice shows, Then hey!-for the ripple of laughing rhyme ! When the brain gets dry as an empty nut,

When the reason stands on its squarest toes, When the mind (like a beard) has a “formal cut,"

There is place and enough for the pains of

prose;

But whenever the May-blood stirs and glows, And the young year draws to the "golden prime," And Sir Romeo sticks in his ear a rose,— Then hey!-for the ripple of laughing rhyme!