Thrice-happy France, whose facile sons inherit Power to enjoy with yet a rarer merit, Power to forget! Our Boucher rose, I say, With hand still prest to heart, with pulses throbbing, And blankly stared at poor Rosina sobbing. "This was no model, M'sieu, but a lady." Boucher was silent, for he knew it true. "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 sor row. "Bon!" murmured Boucher; "she will come to-morrow." How like a Hunter thou, O Time, dost harry Sparest to strike thy sorely-running quarry, Time, if Love hunt, and Sorrow hunt, with thee, There is no way to flee. Woe to Rosina! By To-morrow stricken, thicken, Cloud and the cold,-the loneliness-the wind. Only a little by the door she lingers, Waits, with wrung lip and interwoven fingers. 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? Going to die! For who shall waste in sadness, Shorn of the sun, the very warmth and light, Miss the green welcome of the sweet earth's gladness, Lose the round life that only Love makes bright: There is no succour if these things are taken. None but Death loves the lips by Love forsaken. So, in a little, when those Two had parted,— "Ah, the poor child!" the neighbours cry of her, "Morte, M'sieu, morte! On dit,-des peines de cœur!" Just for a second, say, the tidings shocked him; Then, he forgot her. But, for you that slew her, You, her own sister, that with airy ease, Just for a moment's fancy could undo her, Pass on your way. A little while, Marquise, Be the sky silent, be the sea serene; As for Rosina,- for the quiet sleeper, Whether stone hides her, or the happy grass, If the sun quickens, if the dews beweep her, Laid in the Madeleine or Montparnasse, Nothing we know,-but that her heart is cold, Poor beating heart! And so the Story's told. |