Or,-to wean you from the vapours ;-
As for these,

You are worth the love they give you,
Till a fairer face outlive you,

Or a younger grace shall please;
Till the coming of the crows' feet,
And the backward turn of beaux' feet,
"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,—
Milder merits better please.

We have passed from Philosophe-dom
Into plainer modern days,—
Grown contented in our oafdom,

Giving grace not all the praise;
And, en partant, Arsinoé,—

Without malice whatsoever,— We shall counsel to our Chloë

To be rather good than clever ;

For we find it hard to smother

Just one little thought, Marquise ! Wittier perhaps than any other,You were neither Wife nor Mother,

“ Belle Marquise !”

THE STORY OF ROSINA.

AN INCIDENT IN THE LIFE OF FRANÇOIS BOUcher. "On ne badine pas avec l'amour."

THE

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."
All the sham life comes back again,—
-one sees
Alcoves, Ruelles, the Lever, and the Coucher,
Patches and Ruffles, Roués and Marquises;

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
Beat to the tune of "After us the flood."

Plain Roland still was placidly "inspecting,"
Not now Camille had stirred the Café Foy;
Marat was young, and Guillotin dissecting,

Corday unborn, and Lamballe in Savoie ;
No faubourg yet had heard the Tocsin ring :—
This was the summer-when Grasshoppers sing.

And far afield were sun-baked savage creatures, Female and male, that tilled the earth, and 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,-
Rose-water Raphael,—en couleur de rose,

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
Pink-ribboned flocks through some pink-flowered grove.

A laughing Dame, who sailed a laughing cargo
Of flippant loves along the Fleuve du Tendre;
Whose greatest grace was jupes à la Camargo,

Whose gentlest merit gentiment se rendre;—
Queen of the rouge-cheeked Hours, whose footsteps fell
To Rameau's notes, in dances by Gardel;~

Her Boucher served, till Nature's self betraying,
As Wordsworth sings, the heart that loved her not,
Made of his work a land of languid Maying,

Filled with false gods and muses misbegot ;-
A Versailles Eden of cosmetic youth,

Wherein most things went naked, save the Truth.

Once, only once,-perhaps the last night's revels
Palled in the after-taste,- -our Boucher sighed
For that first beauty, falsely named the Devil's,

Young-lipped, unlessoned, joyous, and clear-eyed;
Flung down his palette like a weary man,

And sauntered slowly through the Rue Sainte-Anne.

Wherefore, we know not; but, at times, far nearer
Things common come, and lineaments half-seen
Grow in a moment magically clearer ;-

Perhaps, as he walked, the grass he called "too green"
Rose and rebuked him, or the earth "ill-lighted"
Silently smote him with the charms he slighted.

But, as he walked, he tired of god and goddess,
Nymphs that deny, and shepherds that appeal;
Stale seemed the trick of kerchief and of bodice,

Folds that confess, and flutters that reveal;
Then as he grew more sad and disenchanted,
Forthwith he spied the very thing he wanted.