The Home Book of Verse Volume Iv Part 14

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!

Austin Dobson [1840-1921]

"WHEN I SAW YOU LAST, ROSE"

When I saw you last, Rose, You were only so high;-- How fast the time goes!

Like a bud ere it blows, You just peeped at the sky, When I saw you last, Rose!

Now your petals unclose, Now your May-time is nigh;-- How fast the time goes!

And a life,--how it grows!

You were scarcely so shy, When I saw you last, Rose!

In your bosom it shows There's a guest on the sly; (How fast the time goes!)

Is it Cupid? Who knows!

Yet you used not to sigh, When I saw you last, Rose;-- How fast the time goes!

Austin Dobson [1840-1921]

URCEUS EXIT

I intended an Ode, And it turned to a Sonnet.

It began a la mode, I intended an Ode; But Rose crossed the road In her latest new bonnet; I intended an Ode; And it turned to a Sonnet.

Austin Dobson [1840-1921]

A CORSAGE BOUQUET

Myrtilla, to-night, Wears Jacqueminot roses.

She's the loveliest sight!

Myrtilla to-night:-- Correspondingly light My pocket-book closes.

Myrtilla, to-night Wears Jacqueminot roses.

Charles Henry Luders [1858-1891]

TWO TRIOLETS

What he said:-- This kiss upon your fan I press-- Ah! Sainte Nitouche, you don't refuse it!

And may it from its soft recess-- This kiss upon your fan I press-- Be blown to you, a shy caress, By this white down, whene'er you use it.

This kiss upon your fan I press,-- Ah, Sainte Nitouche, you don't refuse it!

What she thought:-- To kiss a fan!

What a poky poet!

The stupid man To kiss a fan When he knows--that--he--can-- Or ought to know it-- To kiss a fan!

What a poky poet!

Harrison Robertson [1856-

THE BALLAD OF DEAD LADIES From The French Of Francois Villon 1450

Tell me now in what hidden way is Lady Flora the lovely Roman?

Where's Hipparchia, and where is Thais, Neither of them the fairer woman?

Where is Echo, beheld of no man, Only heard on river and mere,-- She whose beauty was more than human?...

But where are the snows of yester-year?

Where's Heloise, the learned nun, For whose sake Abeilard, I ween, Lost manhood and put priesthood on?

(From Love he won such dule and teen!) And where, I pray you, is the Queen Who willed that Buridan should steer Sewed in a sack's mouth down the Seine?...

But where are the snows of yester-year?

White Queen Blanche, like a queen of lilies, With a voice like any mermaiden,-- Bertha Broadfoot, Beatrice, Alice, And Ermengarde the lady of Maine,-- And that good Joan whom Englishmen At Rouen doomed and burned her there,-- Mother of G.o.d, where are they then?...

But where are the snows of yester-year?

Nay, never ask this week, fair lord, Where they are gone, nor yet this year, Except with this for an overword,-- But where are the snows of yester-year?

Dante Gabriel Rossetti [1828-1882]

BALLADE OF DEAD LADIES After Villon

Nay, tell me now in what strange air The Roman Flora dwells to-day, Where Archippiada hides, and where Beautiful Thais has pa.s.sed away?

Whence answers Echo, afield, astray, By mere or stream,--around, below?

Lovelier she than a woman of clay; Nay, but where is the last year's snow?

Where is wise Heloise, that care Brought on Abeilard, and dismay?