The Spring half-raised her drowsy head,
Besprent with drifted snow,
“I’ll send an April day,” she said,
“To lands of wintry woe.”
He came,—the winter’s overthrow
With showers that sing and shine,
Pied daisies round your path to strow,
To be your Valentine.
Where sands of Egypt, swart and red,
’Neath suns Egyptian glow,
In places of the princely dead,
By the Nile’s overflow,
The swallow preened her wings to go,
And for the North did pine,
And fain would brave the frost her foe,
To be your Valentine.
ENVOY.
Spring, Swallow, South Wind, even so,
Their various voice combine;
But that they crave on me bestow,
To be your Valentine.
BALLADE OF OLD PLAYS.
(Les Œuvres de Monsieur Molière. A Paris,
chez Louys Billaine, à la Palme.
M.D.C.LXVI.)
LA COUR.
When these Old Plays were new, the King,
Beside the Cardinal’s chair,
Applauded, ’mid the courtly ring,
The verses of Molière;
Point-lace was then the only wear,
Old Corneille came to woo,
And bright Du Parc was young and fair,
When these Old Plays were new!
LA COMÉDIE.
How shrill the butcher’s cat-calls ring,
How loud the lackeys swear!
Black pipe-bowls on the stage they fling,
At Brécourt, fuming there!
The Porter’s stabbed! a Mousquetaire
Breaks in with noisy crew—
’Twas all a commonplace affair
When these Old Plays were new!